genre : historical literary fiction (~1982 & ~1997) MCs : achillean biracial Korean American man & white boy POV : dual 1st-person location: Po
genre : historical literary fiction (~1982 & ~1997) MCs : achillean biracial Korean American man & white boy POV : dual 1st-person location: Portland, ME, USA & New York City, NY, USA indie? : yes
Somewhere between a 4- and a 5-star.
The central theme of the book is pedophilia. It reminded me of the biographical movie Spotlight in the sense that both instances of church-related child molestation happened on the East Coast around the same time. Edinburgh was published the same year the original The Boston Globe’s “spotlight” team started the investigation (2001), way before the team won a Pulitzer Prize for it (2003). I picked up this book because it’s queer and Asian, and I expected it to be sad and disturbing but I didn’t know it would also be beautiful in both the writing and the perverseness of the characters.
Edinburgh consists of three parts: when Fee (biracial Korean American) was a boy, when Warden was fifteen, and when Fee was about thirty. Everything happened as the butterfly effect of the boys choir director Big Eric molesting at least twelve boys, Fee being one of them. Even after Big Eric’s arrest, the lives of everyone around Fee—his crush Peter, his fuck buddy Zach, his friend Freddie—are the way they are because of their choir days. As Fee slowly reaches his adulthood, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was his fault. When he meets Warden after returning to his hometown, everything blows out of proportion fast.
The writing is both somber and lyrical; the lives of all the characters crash and burn and everything was written in such an evocative way. I love how Fee and Warden feel and see their surroundings, the ever-present heaviness and yearning in their thoughts. Part one of Edinburgh started when Fee was twelve, before he fell prey to Big Eric, and I did wonder if a twelve-year-old could think like that, like his world has turned sepia.
Chee is also a biracial Korean American gay man. I love how he introduced the Korean folklore of fox spirits into the story (vs Warden thinking himself as a bird) and also touched upon the cruelty the Japanese brought to Korea during WWII—same things happened to Taiwan (assimilation, “comfort women”). It breaks me to learn about what Fee’s grandparents went through and now what Fee is going through. I wish Edinburgh didn’t end as it did, but for Fee, how could it not?
I listened to the audiobook and it made the reading experience amazing. Daniel K. Isaac, who is also gay and Korean American, perfectly portrays Fee: the boy who was hurt, the man who never healed. I love Isaac’s voice, how he just sounded so sad and the rhythm he introduced to the sentences. Josh Hurley also narrated wonderfully as Warden, but we didn’t get as much of him as Fee.
Edinburgh is not a romance and it is not supposed to be romantic. And yet it is deathly beautiful.
content warnings: pedophilia (child molestation, photographing nude children), drowning, sex between children, self harm (cutting, cigarette burns), f slur, pandemic (black death), suicide (self-immolation, gun), use of “handicapped” (school name back in 1980s), AIDS, loss of grandparents, arson, murder, racism, assimilation to Japanese culture, “comfort women”...more
Stick with the story even if you find yourself frustrated with Molly’s pining and Alex’s “girlfriend” (not each other).
Molly Parker (18, hal3.5 stars.
Stick with the story even if you find yourself frustrated with Molly’s pining and Alex’s “girlfriend” (not each other).
Molly Parker (18, half-Korean, lesbian) has crushed on the very cool Cora Myers for the longest time. Now they’re both in college, and what better time for Molly to make a move than now? With Alex Blackwood (~18, lesbian) seeking to prove to her sort-of girlfriend Natalie Ramirez that she doesn’t flirt with all the girls she meets, Alex offers to help Molly get the girl. But will Molly end up getting Cora?
I have to be honest that the book and I got off on the wrong foot. Maybe my initial hopes for this were too high. Sapphic YA written by wives? Sign me up!
While I generally cannot picture characters, I can see the settings and the characters do things clearly. This might be an advanced copy issues, but in the first few chapters, there were so many confusing things: how did Noah open the door with one hand holding a pizza and the other a bottle of honey? were Alex walking to the bus stop while Cora talked about her major or were they already at the bus stop? etc. Yes, these are very minor details that are completely unimportant to the story, but they left me confused. But as Molly and Alex spend more time together, I found myself starting to enjoy the story. The buildup was nice so She Gets the Girl ended up being an enjoyable read.
Molly and Alex are so cute together! I would say it is a very slow-burn romance as they spent about 98% of the story (not exaggerating) dating someone else. Despite this, they have a lot of cute meet-ups that felt like dates in a sort-of-platonic sense.
I love the side plot about alcoholism: Alex’s absent mother and the sober food truck owner Jim, who is awesome. (This part, especially, reminds me of The Map to You by Rachel Stockbridge. You can read my review here.) There is also the struggle of heritage on Molly’s mother’s side. It touches upon being a Korean adoptee in a white household. Also, while Molly and her mother are very close, like best-friends-close, there are also times Molly needed space and I think those were well-done details, too.
I read this as an ebook and have not listened to the audio version, but it is narrated by Natalie Naudus and Valentina Ortiz, and I would recommend checking it out.
I love the writing, the way Hong weaves history and stories and personal experiences together to form a compelling narrative. An excellent nonfiction I love the writing, the way Hong weaves history and stories and personal experiences together to form a compelling narrative. An excellent nonfiction book with seven richly written essays on both her own identity of being an Asian American (Korean American) and the historical context of what it means to be Asian in America.
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