Read Jean Frazier Kwong’s Pizza Girl, and couldn’t help but finish, although it’s my weakness to stop short of Chekhov’s gun. This is the type of book you write at the beginning of your MFA, but not the end. I mean this in the best possible way.
I was moved by the book’s earnestness, the little hopeful yelps–saying please like me! See me!
The ways in which it felt unsteady–the obvious subversion of stereotypes throughout, to a fault, really.
The ways in which it rose to glory: Jane as a character with fatal flaws, not a dream.
I didn’t mind the Jenny Hauser subplot. We all have our Jennys.
The only other book that I felt came close–Sour Heart…perhaps even some Amelia Gray? This one was its own category.