Review: American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (28 days of reviews #4)

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Release Date: December 23rd 2008
Publisher: Square Fish
Format: Paperback
Pages: 233
Genre: Young Adult - Fantasy
Source: My collection
Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon | The Book Depository
Add it: Goodreads

All Jin Wang wants is to fit in. When his family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds that he's the only Chinese American student at his school. Jocks and bullies pick on him constantly, and he has hardly any friends. Then, to make matters worse, he falls in love with an all-American girl...

Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. Adored by his subjects, master of the arts of kung-fu, he is the most powerful monkey on earth. But the Monkey King doesn't want to be a monkey. He wants to be hailed as a god...

Chin-Kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he's ruining his cousin Danny's life. Danny's a popular kid at school, but every year Chin-Kee comes to visit, and every year Danny has to transfer to a new school to escape the shame. This year, though, things quickly go from bad to worse...

These three apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist, in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant and action-packed. American Born Chinese is an amazing rise, all the way up to the astonishing climax--and confirms what a growing number of readers already know: Gene Yang is a major talent.

American Born Chinese is a graphic novel all about Jin Wang. Jin Wang is a Chinese American that really just wants to fit in and get the popular American girl. Then a new boy named Wei-Chen Sun moves to town from Taiwan. Jin wants nothing to do with him because he is an FOB (fresh off the boat) but soon they become best friends.

There is also a story about Monkey King, the king of an island who has mastered different disciplines so he can become more Godlike. However, when he finds out about a party in heaven with all the different Gods he insists on going. He is denied entrance to the party because he is a monkey and he doesn’t wear shoes.  He soon beings to despise the fact that he is a monkey and does everything he can to change that. You follow him on his journey to discovery.

The last person we follow is Danny. Danny is an all American kid on the basketball team, but he is also the new kid in school. Every time he switches schools his cousin from China comes to town and ruins everything for him. His cousin is a crazy Chinese guy and the sections of his story play out like a tv show. There are parts where the audience is laughing and whatnot.

The last thing I expected was for all these stories to combine into one. I was super surprised at the ending of this book. It was fantastic. I won’t talk about it because I don’t’ want to spoil anything but it was a really good wrap up to the stories.

The artwork in this book is really good and I enjoyed the way the book was written and laid out. There are funny parts and sad parts. I can see this book being added to my favorites of the year and the year has only just begun. I am definitely interested in reading more graphic novels by this author.

My Rating: