Paul Yee

Four short stories about a group of 5th-grade friends who live in Strathcona (inner city Vancouver, adjacent to Chinatown). Each story is told from the point of view of a different child. One is a thoroughly assimilated 3rd-generation Chinese-Canadian girl, two more are first-generation immigrant boys (one from very urban Hong Kong and one from a farming family in mainland China), and the fourth is a white girl who lives in public housing and is stigmatized by teachers as a bit of a show more troublemaker. They're all on a kids' hockey team at the local recreation centre. The different viewpoints give the reader a chance to see the kids as they see themselves and each other, which is a great reading experience for middle-school kids learning to evaluate the reliability of narration. It's also helpful in exploring questions about race and identity. And each story has the children experiencing personal growth in some small way. Overall, a really good book.

It's also a period piece now. I'm not familiar with Vancouver, but I do know that the huge influx of wealthy Chinese in recent decades has fueled incredible increases in real estate prices and I would be surprised if Strathcona has escaped the gentrification that I've seen in Toronto. Still a good book, and the excellent afterword on the history of Vancouver, of Strathcona, and of the Chinese in British Columbia (with photos) brings the history up to 1983, the date of publication. show less

I've been thinking a lot about how when I was a kid white settler Canada seemed like just the way of things and we knew we had a lot of shit to answer for and yeah yeah there were a lot of Songhees kids at my school and yeah yeah yeah also "white" meant "multicultural" but mostly white and all that, but a human lifetime is long, and I'm starting to feel like I'm getting some kind of a look in on historical time and recognizing how very different the Canada of 2100 will look from anything the show more children of 1980, still weirdly steeped in British imperial pageantry, could recognize. Nothing's permanent, even though everyone feels it is. And I'm not of course saying anything like "oh this white boy ghost and the Chinese boy who replaced him," which is far from the intent of this book, but the white boy's world was the one we were taught we belonged to, were the continuation of, where the fact is waves of migration will come eternally and change this place, and that's a much bigger and more amazing thing but there is also an undeniable ghostly feeling to it. show less

I picked this book up while I was going through the YA section of my library, and with my interest in gay YA and Asian cultures, this seemed like a good choice of book to read. I can't really relate to the main character, Ray Liu, because I'm a white girl living in Michigan and Ray's a gay, Chinese teenage immigrant living in Canada. I can't comment on the authenticity of the voice or whatever, but that's fine. Because I adored this book. It's not very long, just under 200 pages and I read show more it in a few hours. While I might not be able to relate to Ray, it feels honest to me. The emotions that Paul Yee writes are raw and you can feel Ray's worries and frustrations.

It's similar to a lot of gay YA I've read, there's drama when his dad finds out he's gay. He has to go out into the world to find himself, but that's where a lot of similarities end. Ray's a computer gamer, he has to live on the streets (which is also where he finds himself). And yes, it does have a happy ending -- but it's not a happily ever after. It also made me cry. We don't know that Ray's life will be easier after he's figured out who he is and that's okay. The ending gives us closure, because we need it. As the novel told us a few times, Ray's young and has plenty of time, which makes the end of the novel all the more bittersweet and wonderful.

There are sexual themes, but not any descriptions of sex. If you're interested in gay YA lit, definitely check it out. But, really, it's a good enough book that people who aren't necessarily interested in gay YA could pick it up, too. Just don't expect it to be sunshine and roses. Paul Yee's book is a twist of harsh reality, the kind that makes a really good YA novel. And it is good. show less

Ray Liu is a recent immigrant from China enjoying many of the advantages that American culture and freedom can afford him. He’s not quite fitting in – his English isn’t very good, he’s struggling in school, he has assimilated as well as his friends, and he’s not meeting the expectations of his former army father. His father discovers that he has been searching gay websites and kicks Ray out of the house. Quickly, Ray goes from his comfortable life to being homeless – he’s show more beaten up, robbed twice, and seduced by a man who turns out to be a pimp. Will Ray resort to selling himself in order to be able to survive? show less