A review by lan_string
Yellow: Stories by Don Lee

3.25

I wanted to like this so much more than I did. I loved the interconnectedness of the stories; I loved the complexity of the town and of the families. I thought the concepts were great; most of the plots were really gripping. It fell flat for me on a few fronts. Firstly, for a collection that is ostensibly about representation and creating narrative space for Asian Americans, I felt like the text was surprisingly pandering to other audiences. This might be the fault of an editor trying to make the collection more palatable, but like….. if I need to look up ABC because I’m not the target audience, then I think we’re all going to live, you don’t have to spell it out for me. The main problem I had though was that often, the stories were just a little shoddily written. Apart from a few really great and thought-provoking one-liners, the entire thing just felt rushed. There was a lot of potential supported by not very much good execution. It felt SO obvious that the rest of the stories were thrown together to support a collection inspired by Yellow. And on that note, wow - making your titular, closing, and by far longest story the absolute best of the bunch?? Total shocker. It was good though. :-) also loved the cowboy story with Annie Yung.