Waylaid

This excellent coming of age novel is narrated by the unnamed son of Taiwanese immigrants, who own a rundown hotel in a forgettable town on the Jersey Shore. His father earned an engineering degree in Taiwan, but was unable to keep his job in the US. He spends his summers, as do most of the residents of the town, catering to young vacationers from North Jersey and New York, who tear up the hotel and town and pollute the beaches with beer bottles, cigarette butts and condoms. During the rest of the year, the hotel is populated by lonely old men and hookers turning tricks. He starts obsessing about having sex, spurred by the porn magazines that he picks up while cleaning the hotel's rooms, and he engages in humorous and mostly futile show more attempts to get any of girls he meets to sleep with him. Although he is a good student, he despises almost everyone, especially his parents, who eat stinky Chinese food and make him work like a dog, his school mates, who isolate and make fun of him because of his race, and the hotel's guests, who punch holes in the walls and treat him with condescension. There is hope for him, as his scheme to get his cute classmate and girlfriend to sleep with him in one of the hotel's empty rooms may come to fruition before long.

[Waylaid] is probably the best coming of age novel I've read, as it authentically portrays the daily frustrations and small victories of a teenage boy trying to fit into a town that doesn't want or respect him, and whose parents don't understand him. The regular low-level discrimination he has to put up with as an Asian-American ring true, as do his parents' struggles to survive in an unfriendly town. I did not find this to be an overly depressing read, as the author does not dwell too long on the narrator's negative experiences and frustrations, and humor and honesty are present throughout this well written work. I'll definitely look for more works by this gifted author, and would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in coming of age literature. show less

Definitely not your average coming of age story. It is narrated by a 12 year Chinese American boy who is tasked with helping to run his parents motel at the Jersey shore (think Asbury Park, not Cape May) in the early 80's and who is determined to lose his virginity.
The motel is a complete dump, that other than during the summer, basically rents rooms by the hour.
The story is very crude, and also very funny.

A bleak novel about a boy growing up in a sleazy road-side hotel and losing his childhood in a world dominated by work and sex. It's well written but I found it depressing.

Eh.

I wasn't really clear on what this book is trying to do. As it opens, the 12 year old narrator is helping his parents operate a run-down hotel on the Jersey Shore, and his view of women and sex is mostly formed by his encounters with men bringing cheap prostitutes to the cut-rate rooms. That's pretty grim, but not necessarily bad as a set-up. And then ... that's it. That's the entire book. The writing's not bad, but I have a dire suspicion that the point of the book might be that nothing changes, which is a yawner.

Grade: D

Story: 4.0 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 8
Prose: 7

gritty, no-nonsense delivery

7-08