Amazing debut novel by a talented young writer!
Underspin is a novel in stories about Ryan Lo, a table tennis prodigy who seems destined for greatness but ends up dead before his twenty-fifth birthday. Each story is from a different character's POV, from his on-and-off girlfriend Anabel, also a table tennis player, to Herr Doktor Eckert, the German psychologist hired by his table tennis league.
Beautifully written, funny and tragic, this is a book about ambition, envy, and greatness, about getting what you want and then giving up and spinning out!
HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Underspin is a surprising yet devastatingly heavy novel, focusing on the cruel underbelly of adolescence professional sports, gross abuses of power, on grief, trauma, and the impact of staying silent. Ryan Lo was one of the best table tennis players of his generation, that is, until his untimely death. Underspin begins with the day of his funeral, details of his demise unclear, and then rewinds to tell the story of Ryan’s life from the perspective of others. From the eyes of friends, acquaintances, and even strangers, we slowly piece together Ryan’s deeply complex yet misunderstood story. He is sweet and kind at times, he is distasteful in other stories, and his toxic relationship with his coach hangs over each interaction like a dark cloud. What is really going on in Ryan Lo’s mind?
Underspin was a heavy and slow read, not just from the intense material, but from entering into completely new lives and stories each chapter— Zhao does an excellent job in detailing the ins and outs of each backstory, down to each minute detail. As beautifully as the novel was written, sometimes the text was confusing to read with long streams of consciousnesses and overlapping thoughts, making some particular stories hard to follow. But overall, Underspin is an extraordinary and dynamic read, unlike any book I’ve read before. E.Y. Zhao writes with such power and heart, and I appreciated the storytelling structure as a realistic way to understand the complexities and dynamics our characters.
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC, posted on goodreads

E.Y. Zhao did the impossible: she made me enjoy reading a book about sports.
Told in interconnected stories that intersect with table tennis hotshot Ryan Lo, the book speaks to the inordinate amount of pressure and toxicity that laces elite sports, particularly from a young age. Lo's life before his death becomes the focus of the novel as we see Ryan's major life movements through the eyes of others. It makes him an enigmatic obsession that we keep just reaching out for and missing, which drives us through the novel so satisfyingly!

Underspin begins at the funeral of Ryan Lo - a talented table tennis player - and deep dives into his short life, rewinding the years to follow his growth from child to adult, through the eyes of the people who knew him best, knew him barely, or had been affected by him in some way, shape or form. It touches on the darkness that comes with being a talented young athlete, abuse of power, trauma, and sexual assault in a complex but sensitive way; never explicitly going into details, but leaving enough hints for you to understand the truth within the fractured timeline of Ryan's life.

Each chapter is written from the perspective of a different person whom Ryan knew, from various periods of his life. Each chapter has a distinct style and voice, which is fascinating and incredibly clever. However, it's also frustrating because, despite watching this child grow into a young man, being with him through multiple important events, competitions, and moments, you never truly get to understand him. You never find the real Ryan, because all you get to see of him is the version that each character sees - and they all view him differently. For some, Ryan is an unpleasant, cruel bully; to others, he's charming, attractive, and admirable. All I wanted to know was: Who IS Ryan Lo, and what really happened to him? But those questions are never explicitly answered, leaving you to piece the puzzle together, one story at a time.

Admittedly, this was a slow read for me - not just because of the heaviness of the implied content, but because of the long, winding sentences the author used regularly throughout the book that, on many an occasion, made me go back and re-read sometimes pages at a time. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing - it gave me time and space to think about the words I was reading, but I did find it affected not only the pacing, but also how often I wanted to reach for the book to read more.

Overall, I can't say I enjoyed this book because it left me feeling an emptiness inside that I can't quite explain, but that in itself should be testament to how well written, thoughtful, and thought-provoking it is. A difficult read? Yes. A worthwhile read? Also, definitely yes.

Thank you, NetGalley and Astra Publishing, for the ARC. It's greatly appreciated <3

A darker read than I thought I was getting myself into. But then again, I feel like that’s the landscape of children in pro/ competitive sport spaces.

Zhao did a great job of capturing some of the unique/ disturbing truths of these communities, in a well written, character driven story.

Some bits that didn’t vibe as much with me were the length (I feel like this story could have been as effectively told in 50 less pages), and complexity of some of the writing (though mostly nice prose, other times it just felt overly wordy).

Congrats to the author on this impactful debut novel, and thanks to publishers for opportunity to early review it

Man, this really hits!! The ambiguous ending kind of killed me, but all in all a totally engrossing read.

E.Y. Zhao’s debut novel is a dazzling, multi-perspective portrait of table tennis star Ryan Lo. The novel begins with Ryan’s funeral and slowly unspools over the course of many years, revealing pieces of Ryan’s life as seen through the people who knew him, competed with him, or merely had passing moments with him. Ryan is charming, vulnerable, self-destructive, insecure, cocky. As the pressures of competition and relationships bear down, we witness the undoing of a young athlete who has dedicated his adolescence, his body, and his mental psyche to the world of sports. Through deft prose, Zhao explores trauma, grief, self-sacrifice, and abuse (by those who suffer and those who witness it). An impressive debut. Between Underspin and the upcoming Marty Supreme film, it feels like this is the year of table tennis.

i was really interested in this because my husband is a table tennis player and it didn’t disappoint! thank you so much for this e-arc!!

Underspin is a tremendous debut. We only get to know our main character through how others saw/knew him and it felt like I was piecing together an intricate puzzle. This is also an incredibly important book in theme, and I won't look at intense competitive sports the same.

tumultuous, intense, and deep-thinking character study that makes a novel about sports work really well. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

This is a fascinating look into a world that is new to me. I love reading about areas of competition and expertise which are completely foreign to my experience. It opens your mind to the wide range of experiences and lives available to us as people. While the world of table tennis is new, and I learned a lot about the passions there, some themes are familiar. We've learned about the abuse that happened for many years with Olympic gymnastics, and here also there is a story of far-reaching abuse that many could see peripherally but did not pinpoint, allowing it to continue far too long. Here also, we see the dynamic of families with children who are of the age just beyond where they realise their own parent's (and other adults) failures. This is something I can relate to and I'm sure many readers will be able to see in their own experiences as well.

At times, I found myself a bit disoriented, unsure what a character had just experienced. I think that was intentional; it mirrors the confusion people feel in uncertain or disturbing situations.. With so many characters, each connected in some way to the central mystery, the narrative demands close attention. I found that the demand for complete attention is intense; understanding who each character is, keeping track of their relationship, while I'm also learning about table tennis was a challenge at times.

All in all, I enjoyed reading this and will now watch a little closer when I see table tennis competitions on the sports channels.

Thanks to Astra Publishing House and NetGalley for access.

In "Underspin", E. Y. Zhao sets the stage for the rise and fall of a table tennis protege - all told through the perspectives of those who are a part of his life.

The son of two high-performing surgeons in California, Ryan Lo has everything he needs for an incredible life. From a young age, he's trained for greatness in the sport of table tennis under the watchful eye of his coach Kristian, and made his name known across numerous competitions and victories. Yet, even in the early pages of this novel, it's revealed that he dies before he's hit 25 years of age - a jarring discovery, but one that carries the reader along through the rest of the story. In alternating perspectives and voices, Zhao reveals more details about Lo's life - from his childhood where he garnered envy and jealousy from his fellow peers training under Coach Kristian, to his long-time girlfriend Anabel Yu who he met in the table tennis competitions, and in later years, to a senior couple who receive lessons from him.

As someone who's Chinese American, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Despite the fact that table tennis (ping pong) isn't quite as well-known or appreciated in the US, the grueling hours of training, the sacrifices made, the physical pain and impairments that it can cause are made clear here - and for those unfamiliar with the sport, gives readers an appreciation for it. And just as it happens in any other sport, it poses risks to its players, including the toll on their physical and mental health, the tempting glory of fame and money, and the potential for abuse of its players. While I did find the sheer number of characters and perspectives difficult to keep track of, it didn't detract from the overall novel and was a unique storytelling that helped paint the life and character of its protagonist.

Very much a recommended read when "Underspin" is published in late September!

I must admit that I know close to nothing about table tennis but no prior knowledge is required to appreciate the lyricism of the prose or the puzzle box-like structure of the narrative.

The novel employs multiple POVs with each chapter being told from the perspective of a character who knows, or should I say, knew Ryan the table tennis prodigy. The story opens with his funeral and a sense that he had died too young, having only been in his 20s. The other chapters jump across the timeline, leaving it up to the readers to piece together the events of Ryan's life up till the moment of his death.

Ryan is the main character, but in his absence, the narrative makes do with fragmentary recounts of him as viewed from the outside, through lenses of envy, desire, resentment, obligation, love, or indifference. The result is that Ryan remains enigmatic, his motives only guessed at but impossible to know clearly. Even when the closing chapter shows us a snapshot of him as an ordinary guy on the street, it differs from the chapters in that there is no dive into his interiority to show us what he's thinking or how he's feeling. In his life as in his death, Ryan is inscrutable.

’You can't seek the past; it has turned its back on you, and you cannot choose, if it ever does turn again, which face it presents to you’

Underspin is the devastatingly haunting story of the life of Ryan Lo, a professional ping pong player who died at just 25-years-old. Told through the viewpoints of those whose lives collided with his, this is a story that is certain to have your heart in pieces by the end of it.

Zhao achieved something incredible with this book. There is something uniquely distressing about reading the abuse that Ryan faced through the hands of his coach, Kristian, not through his own perspective but through others. The constant mystery surrounding his own feelings, own passions, and own ambitions added a distinct element to the narrative. The story centres around Ryan and yet as a reader you finish the book knowing next to nothing about him. Zhao very much places the reader in the same position as the characters that interact with him - observers, for better or worse.

The writing was superb, and while I do think there were a few too many tangents and strands of narrative that went on for a little too long, I was mostly pleasantly surprised by the pacing as well.

This is a book I cannot recommend enough for those that enjoy darkly tragic stories on ‘tortured artists’ and the complexities of abuse of power and position.

Overall, Underspin gets 4/5 stars.

thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review! <3

This is a very uniquely written novel. I enjoyed this book but it may not be everyone's cup of tea. It tackles some pretty tough subject matter and a lot of the characters are misunderstood and unlikeable. I am so glad I read this and look forward to more of E.Y. Zhao's writing.

Extraordinary and understated, this novel-in-stories will appeal to a wide variety of readers. I really enjoyed how the story is told through multiple points of view, which enables us to see how different people in Ryan Lo's life viewed him and interacted with him. There are devastating abuses of power in the narrative, so this is not an easy read, but it is certainly a worthwhile one. By the end of the story we really get into Ryan's mind and we better understand the toxicity of his sport.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-galley; all opinions in my review are 100% my own.