American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

American Born Chinese chronicles the fictional lives of a Chinese-American boy who always feels misunderstood, a Monkey King who wants to prove the "Higher ups" that he is more than just a monkey, and a teenage jock that just wants his overly stereotypical cousin to just leave him alone! Their lives intertwine and eventually meet showing the boy, monkey, and teenager as well as the reader that you should never deny your true self.

I've seen this book around for while but I never gave it much thought. I want to scold my past self because of that. This gives you (well it gave me) a huh feeling when you finished because it came out so well in the end. It is one of those lessony books but those are pretty fundamental if you think about it and it's not overly laid out to you so it's like you are discovering it as the characters are.


The Monkey King is all hot headed well... proud. I would be angry too if I were him because everyone made fun of him even though he was amazing! He learned a bunch of Kung-fu so yeah you know he is. The three stories were about the same thing really. Being yourself. Like so what if everyone made fun of you? You can kick their ass any day of the week. You're a monkey. That's who you are. That's sounds so cheesy...

Jin Wang is the Chinese-American boy who always feels misunderstood. He has moved from an area that was predominately Chinese so he never felt out of place. But then his parents go out and say that he's moving and there is only one other person who's Asian in the beginning but they avoid each other so they don't get picked on even more. I've never gotten that. It's probably because I live in Miami that I don't. My school consists mostly of Hispanics and Blacks. But no one really has a problem with one another. Well... there are a couple of guys that aren't the greatest people in the world all the time but that's expected. There's a place for everyone really so it's weird to me. Who cares!? I would so want to be his friend and eventually he does make a friend by the way. He likes transformers and at that age that's pretty awesome. He also falls for this all American girl which is a problem...

And finally the teenage jock who is always embarrassed when his stereotypical cousin comes for a week. So embarrassed that he transfers schools. I would transfer too if this guy was my cousin. When you see who it is you know that the cousin is meant for something. He's supposed to mean something and in Yang's weird way he accomplishes his goal in showing you and the character what it's all about. I didn't get it at first until it was revealed so I was dying for Danny. I hide in embarrassment whenever anyone even a stranger is humiliating themselves so I was ducking down enough for the both of us.

This book is geared toward more to boys. You can tell this by the boys literally drooling over the girls. But it's not anything really bad so just roll your eyes and move on ladies because this graphic novel is worth the read.