This was an engaging read, if slightly confusing at times. It's got a LOT going on. There's a fun sense of farce here, and some great dealing with stereotypes and playing with form, but there were bits and pieces that I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be bad on purpose or if they were just bad. Again, a fun read, but don't take it too seriously and you'll have a good time despite some out-of-nowhere twists.

Disorientation became a chore for me to read. This book never hooked me, and I struggled to try to finish it. This novel was NOT for me.

In Disorientation: A Novel by Elaine Hsieh Chou (Penguin Press, 2022), we meet Ingrid Yang: an eighth-year PhD student in East Asian studies struggling to write a dissertation on (fictional) canonical Chinese American poet Xiao-Wen Chou. Her situation is made all the more distressing by the fact that her student loan deferral is soon to expire, and it’s dawning on her that she was never interested in Xiao-Wen Chou in the first place—rather, her advisor convinced her that this would be a good topic for a marketable dissertation. Then one day, a strange note in the archives leads her to a shocking discovery. What is it? What happens? You’ll have to read Disorientation to find out.

Tune in to this episode of the New Books Network podcast to hear Elaine Hsieh Chou discuss the inspiration for Disorientation, how liberating it felt to have the last word on toxic white men, the difficulties of finding institutional space for Asian American studies, the continued importance of the legacy of the Third World Liberation Front, the joys and challenges of writing complex and flawed Asian American characters, Ingrid’s journey towards healing post-grad school, and more.

Listen to podcast here: https://newbooksnetwork.com/disorientation

If you have not heard about Yi-Fen Chou, aka the white poet who decided to use a Chinese pen name, google it.

DISORIENTATION follows a 29-year-old Taiwanese American PhD student Ingrid Yang (cishet) as she works on her dissertation on Xiao-Wen Chou, a fictional “Asian American” icon. Ingrid starts out as someone who is ignorant on the subject of racism and other social justice issues, which is the realm of her nemesis and fellow graduate student Vivian Vo (sapphic, Vietnamese American). Throughout her research, Ingrid finds substantial dirt on Xiao-Wen Chou, and it becomes the start of her journey of unlearning as well as sets off catastrophic events in Barnes University.

Chou utilizes drug hallucinations and the fictional poet to discuss Asian fetishism, yellowfacing, and brings in other themes of justice/injustice. DISORIENTATION is satirical and delivers everything pretty heavy-handedly (like it is supposed to be in the set up of this novel). It breaks down the sometimes-difficult subject of how a person of color can be racist and that people who come across as open-minded can also be awful bigots.

Ingrid’s point of view is not a pleasant place to be in, but throughout the book, we see that she is relearning and growing. She realizes Timothy Liu (Taiwanese American) is being used as a racism shield (a person of color who makes racist comments so that white people can say “hey my Asian friend here says it, too”), her fiancé Stephen Greene who translates Japanese works and seems to date exclusively Asian women most likely has an Asian fetish, her best friend Eunice Kim (Korean American) definitely has some issues with race given that she is dating the sorry excuse of the white tech bro Thad, etc. The major plot points revolve around who Xiao-Wen Chou really is and what made him such an icon in the scope of the story.

Perhaps you also noticed the oddness in the name “Xiao-Wen Chou” the first time you saw it: “Xiao-Wen” is obviously Pinyin, but what about “Chou”? I still don’t know if there is a last name that is spelled “Chou” in Pinyin. Like the author’s name, “Chou” is most commonly found as a last name that uses Wade–Giles Romanization. Anyway, that might clue you in how there is something fishy going on with the “iconic” poet.

DISORIENTATION gave me a lot to think about, not only about race (again, yellowfacing, fetishizing Asian people and culture, etc.) but also about art—specifically, the author–reader relationship when it comes to audience and why you cannot separate the art from the artist. I’m not naming names here, but suppose an author has some terribly bigoted beliefs. Can we support their works while denouncing their beliefs? Without even considering the financial rewards the author would get through people purchasing their works, should we separate the work from the artist? Read DISORIENTATION and you might know why we should not and cannot if you don’t already know.

Some parts of the story is told through Ingrid’s hallucinations, a side effect of her drug abuse. You don’t know what’s real and what’s not, much like a lot of things going on in the world that seems unreal to begin with. How can things turn out so awfully in <i>Disorientation</i>? Looking back at our real world, it is easy to see that Chou isn’t even exaggerating.

All in all, DISORIENTATION made me angry about the world, and I recommend it.

[content warnings: drug abuse, physical abuse, racism, graphic sex, yellowfacing, hallucination (from drugs), eugenics, cissexism (... not challenged), emotional abuse (including gaslighting), racial microaggression, trespassing, physical assault, strangulation, r slur (somewhat challenged by Ingrid), infidelity]

This book had such a great story, and I loved getting to know the main character, Ingrid. Plus the cover was really fun and pretty too. Ingrid Yang is a Taiwanese American who is in her 8th year as a PhD candidate researching a Chinese poet she no longer has an interest in for her dissertation. When she makes a startling discovery in the University’s archives, her life changes and she starts to look deeper into her identity and confront who she is and what she wants. I loved getting to know Ingrid’s perspective the most, and I enjoyed the author’s voice and writing. She explores social identity, relationships, family dynamics and the Asian-American perspective to a scathing depth with light humor. The university dynamics and politics were hilarious and also a little crazy as well, bordering satirical. Definitely recommend this novel for sure!

After reading “The Love Hypothesis” and “A Brush with Love,” I admit I might have begun to romanticize grad school a little bit. I feel like I kind of have to, seeing as I plan on going in the future, but Elaine Hsieh Chou’s “Disorientation” was a scathing reminder that academia is not all fun romantic adventures.

As a Ph.D. student in her final year, Ingrid Yang just wants to get through her grueling dissertation on Xiao-Wen Chou, a Chinese American poet. Once this is all over, she’ll never have to read “Chinese-y” things again. And then Ingrid discovers a peculiar note in the archives, and she’s taken down a rabbit hole of discoveries that threaten everything she’s known about Chou, about herself and about her university’s East Asian Studies department.

I want to make it clear that “Disorientation” is a satire. Going into the book, if you don’t read it with that knowledge, you may feel very confused and very betrayed by what is going on. Ingrid is a painfully clueless heroine, unaware of both the microaggressions and the blatant racism that happens around her, unable to see past the surface level of anything.

(That’s what this book is really about, by the way — the twenty-first century East Asian experience.)

Ingrid scoffs at other Asian women trying to make a difference in the academic world and constantly seeks the approval of white men. She is a caricature of a person. But that’s the point. Through Ingrid’s unknowing eyes, we’re able to truly grasp the magnitude of her situation on our own as readers, as the people around her are just as much the product of the society we live in that values East Asians when desirable and pushes them aside when not.

Ingrid doesn’t recognize any of these people’s true qualities at the start of her story. She’s mostly just annoyed by her leftist activist nemesis with a superiority complex, barely listening to a word she says. She’s dutifully attached to her fiancé with an Asian fetish. She treats her asshole of an advisor with far too much respect and trust. She goes about her life, doing what she’s told, and when she starts to find out things and her worldview begins to shift, she tries to deny it all, suppressing it with a concerningly addictive, possibly hallucinogenic over-the-counter allergy medicine.

Ingrid’s growth as a character comes slowly, so much so that by the end, you might wonder how on earth she managed to get there with the amount of denial that she experiences in the first half of the novel. I was yelling at her in my head for so long, and yet I couldn’t stop reading. Because I wanted her to learn — I needed her to learn — that anti-Asian racism is real and that it affects her.

Elaine Hsieh Chou’s debut is a smart, witty, infuriatingly frustrating work, one that I’m sure to be dwelling on for a while. This novel is perfect for any East Asian who feels like academia is going to swallow them alive.

“Disorientation” comes out on March 22, 2022. A million thanks to the publisher, Penguin Press, for the early review copy.

“
Despite re-reading the summary of this book on NetGalley and Goodreads, everything I read was unexpected since it’s told from the eyes of such a naive character. One of the main reasons I requested this book was because of the beautiful and excellent book cover as well as the name. It’s perfect. It matches Ingrid’s arc

It’s not easy to write a good book with an unbearable character. I love unlikeable and unhinged female characters, but usually, they are around my age. This one is 30. I had to collect my thoughts because this is truly a sacrificial and surreal book. In fact, most of these characters seem to be satirical versions of the people we meet in our day-to-day, especially in academic settings. I read this book in three sittings. I found myself wanting to scream, throw my phone across the room, and rub my face in sheer embarrassment. But I was determined to see Ingrid gain some redemption or self-reflection.

One important element about this story that makes it so uncomfortable and intriguing is how layered it is; the way it explores dialect, power dynamics, fetishization, positive and negative representation, polarizing politics, race relations, etc and despite these heavy layers, it is told in the perspective of someone we all try not to be.

If you decide to read this book, I am begging you to be patient with it because Ingrid is an unexpected and unpredictable character.

Elaine Hsieh Chou’s satirical debut is a dissertation on academia and race.

Ingrid Yang is in the final stretch of her PhD program, a topic she was pushed toward with the promise of tenure track. She has the support of her advisor and her fiancé but lacks motivation. As she tries to pursue an original thought on the topic of renowned poet, Xiao-Wen Chou, she begins to unravel her life, her university, and the poet's late life and legacy.

The cast of characters is a complex look at people in all roles of politics and power: Vivian Vo the outspoken always published star, the white department head of the East Asian Studies Department, the university itself, the white fiancé who translates Japanese literature without speaking Japanese.

It is a book on self discovery, changing, speaking up, not going down the path others want to force you into, and going home and talking to your parents about what’s been going on.

It’s about what people in power will do to maintain power, what speaking out against those in power costs, and the cost of waking up to what’s been going on around you.
I took so much away from this novel. As far as debuts go, Chou knocks this out of the park.

happy publication day to disorientation to elaine hsieh chou!

thank you to penguin press and netgalley for the e-arc of disorientation!

in short, this book is brilliant. it’s satirical, it’s savvy, it’s sure to become a staple of the “mentally ill people trying to figure themselves out in their twenties” genre.

this book legitimately had me laughing out loud at some points. the characters are so true to the world of academia, and it was infuriating how accurate some characters were in their ignorance. i have had conversations with people who legitimately think like this!! it’s incredible that anyone can have this mentality!!

the way chou is able to cleverly weave her story is amazing. the reader is figuring everything out alongside ingrid, and it’s really a beautiful journey of self-discovery and acceptance as she’s piecing together the truth surrounding this poet.

my only complaint about this book is its pacing — i thought the ending wrapped up a little quickly for how chaotic things got in the last few chapters. but on the whole, what an incredibly impressive debut.

🌟🌟🌟🌟 / 5

disorientation is out today from penguin press!

Disorientation focuses on Ingrid Yang as she is trying to write her dissertation. But things go awry when she uncovers a secret and life spins out of control. This is one of those books that I think is better if you go in not knowing much about the plot. It’s a satire filled with quirky and memorable characters, and it also offers insightful observations into Asian culture and racism. A clever and unique read…

Thank you to Penguin Group and NetGalley for this ARC.

How was it possible to be so desired and so hated, the two intertwined like heads of the same beast?

★★★★☆

i only found out after reading this book that it takes inspiration from a true story and i am just stunned… Elaine took that story and turned it into a melodramatic satire, diving into the brutal and honest conversation of modern day racism targeted against Asians.

the narration style is definitely not something i’m used to, so to me it felt a bit slow at the beginning. however, after our MC Ingrid discovers a huge revelation and her stress and frustration increases tenfold, it was so interesting to see the descent into chaos. my mouth honestly dropped open at the twist.

this book left me with an overwhelming mount of emotions and i’m still trying to process everything. would definitely recommend giving it a go!

thank you to Penguin Press and NetGalley for the e-arc!

➳ find me on instagram for bookish content: @chaptersofeve

Disorientation follows Ingrid Yang, an eighth year PhD student in East Asian Studies writing her dissertation on a deceased Chinese poet who taught at her university. When she stumbles upon a note in the archive that points to previously unknown information about the poet, she believes it’s the key to her dissertation. What she doesn’t expect is for it to cause her department to implode. I really wanted to love this book. I enjoy seeing books focused on PhD students since I’m one myself, and Chou had the chance to really highlight the problems in academia: sexism, racism, and the general poor treatment of PhD students. And it started off well. The satire of white men fetishizing Asian culture and women was sharp, on point, and funny. However, as the book went on, things started to go down hill.

Even to start, the satire wasn’t particularly subtle, which was fine. Chou was putting a light on very real problems by making fun of them, and I was particularly looking forward to Ingrid realizing that her fiancé is toxic and awful. He’s a white, American man who translates Japanese literature despite not speaking Japanese, by the way. However, the situations started to become more and more over the top to the point of ridiculousness. The plotline with Ingrid’s supervisor, Michael, is a good example of this. It wasn’t funny or even horrifying. It was just ridiculous. The climax in particular made me cringe.

Part of the ridiculousness comes from the characters being caricatures. The social justice activists are depicted as overzealous, over dramatic, and slightly crazy. Every single man is absolutely disgusting. And Ingrid herself is an idiot. I have never encountered a stupider protagonist. She is almost thirty yet acts like a high school student the entire time. I couldn’t believe for a moment that she was in a PhD program. She’s ignorant on basically every topic, including but not limited to, racism, social justice, her own field of study that she’s been looking at for eight years, healthy relationships, and having a basic, human conversation. She made every moment of the book painful.

Which brings me to my last major issue: this book is too long. It’s over 400 pages! It easily could have been half of that without changing anything important about the story. We could have had a few less mental meltdowns from Ingrid (there are a lot). We could have had a few less scenes of her fiancé being a dick (there are also a lot of those). We could have done without the blog/manifesto we get from Michael toward the end. These things didn’t move the plot forward. They didn’t even develop the characters since these traits had already been established (within the exception of the stuff with Michael–but by the point I did not care and I hated that plotline anyway). From the 50% point on, the book just dragged.

Overall, Disorientation has a great premise but the execution leaves much to be desired. I’m sure there are people who will enjoy it, but I found it quite disappointing.

Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Holy moly. Time to unpack this one. And I'm so ready for it. Disorientation follows Ingrid, an eighth year PhD student who has no idea how she was cajoled into 1) the East Asian Studies department (she used to be in the Comparative Literature department) and 2) writing her dissertation about Xiao-Wen Chou, the supposed "father of Chinese poetry" (something she feels is unoriginal and a bit presumptuous since she's Taiwanese and no one seems to know the difference). As she dives deeper into her research for this dissertation about which she is less than thrilled, she discovers a secret that will shatter her whitewashed world.

Disorientation left me feeling... well, disoriented. I traveled across an entire spectrum of emotions: from righteous anger to reluctant fascination. Elaine Hsieh Chou did not hold back at alllllll in her debut novel. She sought to satirize the Asian-American condition and executed it flawlessly. She explores themes of Asian fetishization, internalized racism, the model minority myth, white savior complex, racial trauma, cultural identity and appropriation, systemic racism in academia, WMAF relationships, the list goes on. She tackles each of those topics in subtle, yet world-shattering matter-of-factness that you just can't ignore. My jaw dropped so many times. So much of what Ingrid experiences (the gaslighting and emotional manipulation when it came to her experience as an Asian-American woman) is rooted in truth, yet in our everyday lives, we tend to just Not See It. But under Chou's lens, the reader can dissect these situations and see them through the Asian perspective.

Ingrid and Vivian are excellent character foils of each other. Ingrid is content with assimilating to the American culture. She doesn't speak Taiwanese, she's engaged to a white man, and she's one of the few Asians in her department dominated by white men (also cringe). Ingrid doesn't get why Vivian is so abrasive, but when we finally see Ingrid's epiphany, it's both satisfying and sad.

I can't say enough about how ridiculously well done this book is. I'm still reeling from all the social commentary Chou packed in this debut. She reminds us that the Asian experience is nuanced and that there is no "right" way to be Asian. I absolutely cannot wait to read more of her work!

Disorientation is out on March 22.

This is a story about truth and identity.  Ingrid Yang is a PhD student at an elite northeastern university in the town where she grew up.  Her focus is the work of Xiao-Wen Chou, considered by many to be the father of Chinese American poetry and a long-time faculty member at her university until he passed away a few years prior.  Ingrid was never all that interested in Chou's work -- she was pressured to pursue the area of study by her department chair who is also her advisor.  Now in the fourth year of working on her dissertation, Ingrid does not believe she really has anything new or interesting to say about Chou or his work but also does not know what else she would do with her life.

That is, until she comes across a curious note in the materials in the Chou archives, which she cannot get out of her mind.  As she pursues the mystery behind the note, she ends up uncovering a much bigger secret about Chou that threatens to change everything people have thought about the poet.  Her efforts to manage the secret, especially in the face of questions from a rival in her PhD program, lead to an increasingly unbelievable series of events that threaten to undermine not only Ingrid's personal and professional lives, but also the careers of several people in her field and the continued viability of her department, her area of study, and even her university.

This was a terrific version of a campus novel — funny and incisive. Through a satirical lens, the author deftly and often hilariously explores modern life at universities via Ingrid's misadventures.  The book is also an interesting examination of important issues in modern society around race, identity, politics, and polarization and how they manifest in professional, friendship, and romantic contexts.  Finally, and without giving anything away, I thought the author's treatment of truth and the ways individuals and groups respond to it when it contradicts their long-held beliefs, and how that reaction changes over time, was particularly fascinating.

Strongly recommended!

Holy cow was this a five star read from the first page. I read a lot of this style of novel but this was such a new take on the “smart girl decomposing” trope. I resonated with the main characters overuse of antacids. Hilarious and striking all at once. This is such an important story being told. I cannot wait to recommend this as book of the month to my book club (which has almost 20k members!)

Hilarious and thought provoking, this astonishing first novel explores the insanity of trying to complete a dissertation in today’s ever evolving academia. This witty roller coaster made me laugh out loud often.

3.5 ⭐

Quote: Added to that, Ingrid was obsessive and neurotic, traits well suited for academia. The real world, or nonacademic world, frightened her with its largeness and unknownness— far better to cozily burrow into old texts, to safely engage with dead authors who couldn’t talk back to her.

Surprising, charming, occasionally too much but it for sure kept my attention.

This book ended up being nothing like I expected. It took me a moment to dive into the story, as the plot wasn't exactly what I would normally pick up. I also had a bit of a problem to connect with the characters.

But just when I started to think this is going to be a miss for me, the plot got a few unexpected turns, and I just had to know what was going to happen next.

Honestly, I still have no idea what I thought about it. I kind of liked it, but also – what did I just read? And the ending was its own kind of messed up. The title actually turned out to be eerily accurate.

I’m sure this book has its target audience, but for the life of me I can't figure out whom to recommend it to. I guess if you like quirky reads that cover social issues... but even then you'd need to like a specific kind of quirky.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou in exchange for an honest review.

This is an interesting book. Ingrid is a graduate student at a top college. Now several years into writing her dissertation, and feeling largely stuck, she comes across a curious note in the archival materials of the subject of her studies, a well known Chinese American poet who was a star faculty member at her school until his untimely passing. As she tries to determine what the note means, she inadvertently uncovers a secret that changes everything about what she and others thought they knew about the poet -- and spins her life, and the lives of those in her orbit, in increasingly strange and surprising directions.

This is an intriguing debut, full of thought-provoking observations and a compelling mystery..

Chou has combined the coming of age novel with a campus satire that will resonate with a range of readers. Ingrid Yang is 29, in the 8th year of her dissertation, and unhappy with any number of things when she discovers there's something off about her subject. She's an awfully immature for 29 but she's been in the shelter of academia for her whole life. Now she's dealing with high expectations from her family, a fiance who is fascinated with all things Asia for their being Asia (including Ingrid) and the realization that her discovery might tank the whole enterprise and bring down the hammer on her institution. Some of the characters might seem like caricatures but I suspect more than one reader will recognize someone they know. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It does sag a bit in spots but in the end, it's a good addition to the genre.

This was a good read but I found it a bit hard to get into in the first half. As much as I enjoyed reading the story though, I couldn't say the same about the protagonist. It was a bit hard for me to form an emotional attachment to the mc resulting in me not really caring about her. Nonetheless, I didn't end up hating this book and I still had a great time reading it.