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Nov. 30th, 2010 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsOh, Laurence Yep, how are your books so heavy-handed and yet so ridiculously adorable?
When I picked up Thief of Hearts (the most modern-set of his Golden Mountain chronicles about multiple generations of a Chinese family in San Francisco) it was mostly because I figured just from the title that it was likely to be a romance, and I as I have never seen him do one before I was kind of bizarrely curious to see how Yep handled that. It turns out: no, it is not a romance! Instead, it is a MYSTERY. Except not really, mostly it's about a preteenager learning about herself and bonding with her awesome great-grandma and figuring out that her mom is secretly maybe a little bit cool.
The plot, such as it is, centers around half-Chinese Stacy, who is given the arduous task by her parents of showing new immigrant Hong Ch'un around school. At first, bonding is not so much happening. (Bonding does not even really happen by the end of the book, which I actually really liked - Hong Ch'un and Stacy learn to understand each other more over the course of the story, but they absolutely don't become insta-friends.) Except then someone starts stealing stuff! And Hong Ch'un is accused and runs away! Which is basically an excuse for Stacy and her mom and her great-grandmother to take a ROAD TRIP from the suburbs into Chinatown to look for her and have stealth bonding.
Things that Laurence Yep is awesome with: AMAZING OLD LADIES. Stacy's great-grandma may not be as awesome as Aunt Lil, because NO ONE is as awesome as Aunt Lil, but she is still pretty cool. Also, believable preteen friendship dynamics - I actually thought the plotline with Karen, Stacy's clingy childhood best friend, was . . . okay, obvious, but also interesting and well-handled, and none of Stacy's other friendships are put into the standard identity-crisis-storyline boxes. Also, the totally adorable details! The SPY NETWORK OF AWESOME OLD PEOPLE! Stacy's dad up on the roof with a cherry branch to pollinate the cherry trees! I don't know, man, this one may not be great literature, but somehow whenever I read a Laurence Yep I usually just end up beaming at the world for a few hours after. I also think I need to read Child of the Owl next, which is the one about Stacy's mom. (When she's twelve, so presumably before she's got it going on. - man, did I really date myself with that reference?)
Other things, by the way, that are also totally adorable: Disney's Rapunzel! (It has another name; I've forgotten it.) I suspect that the Mother Gothel-Rapunzel relationship may have been given a lot more depth and complexity in my head than we actually see onscreen, but it's hard for me to tell because I find the version in my head so interesting. Overall I thought the film spent a lot of time being really, really pretty. And I am totally okay with that. (The lantern scene! I just sat there with my eyes like this *_______*) I don't really want to think about it in too much more depth, because other issues aside, when I do, I just keep coming back to the fact that the last scene should really have just segued straight into Anastasia. A dashing rogue! A long-lost princess (who doesn't even have the same hair color she did when she was a baby)! And, I mean, are you telling me that kingdom didn't have two hundred Rapunzel-imposters being groomed to approach the king and queen each year? I AM DUBIOUS.
Also, the angry dictatorial horse made the movie.
When I picked up Thief of Hearts (the most modern-set of his Golden Mountain chronicles about multiple generations of a Chinese family in San Francisco) it was mostly because I figured just from the title that it was likely to be a romance, and I as I have never seen him do one before I was kind of bizarrely curious to see how Yep handled that. It turns out: no, it is not a romance! Instead, it is a MYSTERY. Except not really, mostly it's about a preteenager learning about herself and bonding with her awesome great-grandma and figuring out that her mom is secretly maybe a little bit cool.
The plot, such as it is, centers around half-Chinese Stacy, who is given the arduous task by her parents of showing new immigrant Hong Ch'un around school. At first, bonding is not so much happening. (Bonding does not even really happen by the end of the book, which I actually really liked - Hong Ch'un and Stacy learn to understand each other more over the course of the story, but they absolutely don't become insta-friends.) Except then someone starts stealing stuff! And Hong Ch'un is accused and runs away! Which is basically an excuse for Stacy and her mom and her great-grandmother to take a ROAD TRIP from the suburbs into Chinatown to look for her and have stealth bonding.
Things that Laurence Yep is awesome with: AMAZING OLD LADIES. Stacy's great-grandma may not be as awesome as Aunt Lil, because NO ONE is as awesome as Aunt Lil, but she is still pretty cool. Also, believable preteen friendship dynamics - I actually thought the plotline with Karen, Stacy's clingy childhood best friend, was . . . okay, obvious, but also interesting and well-handled, and none of Stacy's other friendships are put into the standard identity-crisis-storyline boxes. Also, the totally adorable details! The SPY NETWORK OF AWESOME OLD PEOPLE! Stacy's dad up on the roof with a cherry branch to pollinate the cherry trees! I don't know, man, this one may not be great literature, but somehow whenever I read a Laurence Yep I usually just end up beaming at the world for a few hours after. I also think I need to read Child of the Owl next, which is the one about Stacy's mom. (When she's twelve, so presumably before she's got it going on. - man, did I really date myself with that reference?)
Other things, by the way, that are also totally adorable: Disney's Rapunzel! (It has another name; I've forgotten it.) I suspect that the Mother Gothel-Rapunzel relationship may have been given a lot more depth and complexity in my head than we actually see onscreen, but it's hard for me to tell because I find the version in my head so interesting. Overall I thought the film spent a lot of time being really, really pretty. And I am totally okay with that. (The lantern scene! I just sat there with my eyes like this *_______*) I don't really want to think about it in too much more depth, because other issues aside, when I do, I just keep coming back to the fact that the last scene should really have just segued straight into Anastasia. A dashing rogue! A long-lost princess (who doesn't even have the same hair color she did when she was a baby)! And, I mean, are you telling me that kingdom didn't have two hundred Rapunzel-imposters being groomed to approach the king and queen each year? I AM DUBIOUS.
Also, the angry dictatorial horse made the movie.
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Date: 2010-11-30 04:20 pm (UTC)It's quite funny reading this, as the other post about Tangled (http://wistfuljane.dreamwidth.org/56585.html) I've read that mentioned this scene had the viewer with a face more like this, I think: -_-
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Date: 2010-11-30 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:22 pm (UTC)I'd guess it's more likely that you missed it because the other reviewer is East/Southeast Asian and you aren't.
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Date: 2010-11-30 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 05:53 pm (UTC)I love that description of how you feel at the end of his books, because its so true though its combined with, must get another one.
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Date: 2010-11-30 06:28 pm (UTC)Fortunately he has written FIVE MILLION so we are both unlikely to run out anytime soon.
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Date: 2010-11-30 06:03 pm (UTC)I was ALSO surprised about the insta-belief about Rapunzel's identity--although she looks so much like her mother, MAAAYBE? I dunno.
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Date: 2010-11-30 06:33 pm (UTC)Yeah, I figured that's how they were handwaving it within the film-verse. But I STILL KEEP WONDERING. Big-eyed teenagers are not all that hard to come by! And Eugene is not exactly the most trustworthy gentleman around.
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Date: 2010-11-30 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 12:31 am (UTC)impatiently to see Rapunzel. I already have the urge to write tons of Rapunzel and Mother Gothel fic. Rapunzel looks like a pretty amazing heroine and the animation really does look so pretty. <33no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 05:01 am (UTC)