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Planet Lolita
On the remote Hong Kong beach where they are camping, bickering parents and their lonely teenage daughter awaken at sunrise to a strange a dozen women suddenly on the shore. They seem to have washed in from the sea. Fifteen-year-old Sarah, known as Xixi, tries befriending them, and she snaps a cell phone image of a beautiful young woman she calls Mary. Soon after, Xixi, believing she has a connection with Mary, posts the photo on Facebook, triggering an online narrative she can neither comprehend nor control. Meanwhile, Jacob and Leah, distracted by their failing marriage, must also deal with the fury of an absent older daughter, Rachel, and a looming new SARS epidemic in Hong Kong. As fear and paranoia settle over the city, isolated Xixi grows more desperate to save Mary from her doomed circumstances. She dares herself to be brave, and take a risk; her action is perilous.
Told in the voice of a bi-racial, "half-half" girl and the language of social media, Planet Lolita is a riveting novel of desires and consequences in our unfolding digital age.
Told in the voice of a bi-racial, "half-half" girl and the language of social media, Planet Lolita is a riveting novel of desires and consequences in our unfolding digital age.
232 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2014
40 people want to read
About the author
Charles Foran
17 books8 followersCharlie Foran was born and raised in Toronto. He holds degrees from the University of Toronto and the University College, Dublin, and has taught in China, Hong Kong, and Canada.
He has published eleven books, including five novels. His fiction, non-fiction, and journalism have all won awards.
Charlie has also made radio documentaries for the CBC program Ideas and co-wrote the TV documentary Mordecai Richler: The Last of the Wild Jews. A past president of PEN Canada, he is a senior fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto, and a member of the Order of Canada.
As of January, 2015, Charlie Foran is CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC). He lives in Toronto with his family.
He has published eleven books, including five novels. His fiction, non-fiction, and journalism have all won awards.
Charlie has also made radio documentaries for the CBC program Ideas and co-wrote the TV documentary Mordecai Richler: The Last of the Wild Jews. A past president of PEN Canada, he is a senior fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto, and a member of the Order of Canada.
As of January, 2015, Charlie Foran is CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC). He lives in Toronto with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 4, 2015
A rather odd book, but quite clever in its structure. There are three parts, written in 3 different styles, about the same Chinese-Canadian 15-year-old girl, Xixi Kwok. To me, it was a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of social media, and how fast things can evolve and explode.
August 11, 2014
Planet Lolita is an interesting novel about a teen girl named Xixi Kwok. Her family is on the beach in Hong Kong when a group of girls get smuggled ashore for use in the sex trade. She connects with one of the girls, and the smugglers get concerned that they've been identified. Xixi posts photos she snapped of the girl on Facebook because she wants to find out how she is doing. The photos go viral, and that includes, mysteriously, one she took but didn't post.
Charles Foran does a decent job in the first part, narrated by Xixi. He even finds turns some of her slangy speech into poetry. But a lot of the writing reminded me this was a middle age white guy trying to sound like an Asian teenage girl.
A lot happens that gets in the way of the main plot. Xixi's parents break up. She gets her first period and epilepsy. There's also something creepy about her dad, but that's never spelled out. Also, a SARS epidemic hits Hong Kong. We also get a lot about her relationship with her sister in Toronto and with a woman who works for her family. The book is in three parts.
The first part tries to say a lot about how teens live online and parents don’t understand the online world, which is partly true. The best thing about this novel is that a lot of it takes place online, just like real life. The writer makes this really obvious, though, not just with the plot about the viral post, but with Xixi's sister saying to her parents, "Check out our platforms. Learn where we're at, who we're hanging with and planning to meet. Learn how we move from place to place and space to space, silent and quick and beyond detection by your analogue radars. If you don’t know my Facebook, you don't know me. It's where us digital kids live." That doesn't sound real for a first-year college student. It sounds like an old guy giving a warning. Then I realized the novel is meant to be set in the near future, and it sounded even more fake. Parents like these would be online enough to realize or be told sooner that their daughter has created an online phenomenon. She's posting this stuff on her own Facebook. And its viral.
The second part is a collection of online posts and tweets and stuff. I guess it's supposed to show us what the online world looks like. It sounds pretty real, but the whole section is really confusing and a lot of stuff happens where we don't get to see how the characters feel.
The last part is told by an old white guy who works with girls. It gives us a conclusion for the story, but most of the plots aren't really resolved. The original premise influences Xixi's life, but it never goes anywhere as a story, and it was the most interesting thing about the book. Planet Lolita has the start of a really good book with some ideas about how Asian girls and young girls get fetishised, and then it lost its way.
Charles Foran does a decent job in the first part, narrated by Xixi. He even finds turns some of her slangy speech into poetry. But a lot of the writing reminded me this was a middle age white guy trying to sound like an Asian teenage girl.
A lot happens that gets in the way of the main plot. Xixi's parents break up. She gets her first period and epilepsy. There's also something creepy about her dad, but that's never spelled out. Also, a SARS epidemic hits Hong Kong. We also get a lot about her relationship with her sister in Toronto and with a woman who works for her family. The book is in three parts.
The first part tries to say a lot about how teens live online and parents don’t understand the online world, which is partly true. The best thing about this novel is that a lot of it takes place online, just like real life. The writer makes this really obvious, though, not just with the plot about the viral post, but with Xixi's sister saying to her parents, "Check out our platforms. Learn where we're at, who we're hanging with and planning to meet. Learn how we move from place to place and space to space, silent and quick and beyond detection by your analogue radars. If you don’t know my Facebook, you don't know me. It's where us digital kids live." That doesn't sound real for a first-year college student. It sounds like an old guy giving a warning. Then I realized the novel is meant to be set in the near future, and it sounded even more fake. Parents like these would be online enough to realize or be told sooner that their daughter has created an online phenomenon. She's posting this stuff on her own Facebook. And its viral.
The second part is a collection of online posts and tweets and stuff. I guess it's supposed to show us what the online world looks like. It sounds pretty real, but the whole section is really confusing and a lot of stuff happens where we don't get to see how the characters feel.
The last part is told by an old white guy who works with girls. It gives us a conclusion for the story, but most of the plots aren't really resolved. The original premise influences Xixi's life, but it never goes anywhere as a story, and it was the most interesting thing about the book. Planet Lolita has the start of a really good book with some ideas about how Asian girls and young girls get fetishised, and then it lost its way.
May 30, 2014
I started reading this book excited at the plot and premise of the novel. It seemed different, even though the books description was poorly written and confusing. It was foreshadowing.
The entire novel is poorly written and confusing. At one point I even checked to make sure it wasn't a self published novel that wasn't edited. Although the author claims to have written the novel in a dialect of half-Asian teenage girl on social media, I just found it poorly done. The writing is absolutely atrocious. Truly bad. I felt generally confused about what exactly was happening. The prose jerks around in a way that comes off as inexperienced writing and not a unique style. I wasn't aware it as even supposed to be narrated in a dialect until I did some Googling. The characters and their descriptions feel like the author is trying too hard to be funny and quick witted with every patch of dialogue. There is so much sarcasm, inside joking, metaphors, nicknames, and attempts at humour everything else is lost and reading it is exhausting. The dialogue reads oddly, and either describes too much or too little through the character's speaking. Bits of conversation sometimes appear to be missing, or in other instances we're completely overloaded with characters describing events verbally. I'm unsure why her family has the need to stand around and comment on the situation at hand entirely through dialogue. Characters, events, and objects are continuously given nicknames with origins that are never explained or make no sense. Tumours for cigarettes? Mermaids for women?
I constantly felt as if I was being told the story, not shown it. The prose just feels uncomfortable and jumpy.
The entire novel is poorly written and confusing. At one point I even checked to make sure it wasn't a self published novel that wasn't edited. Although the author claims to have written the novel in a dialect of half-Asian teenage girl on social media, I just found it poorly done. The writing is absolutely atrocious. Truly bad. I felt generally confused about what exactly was happening. The prose jerks around in a way that comes off as inexperienced writing and not a unique style. I wasn't aware it as even supposed to be narrated in a dialect until I did some Googling. The characters and their descriptions feel like the author is trying too hard to be funny and quick witted with every patch of dialogue. There is so much sarcasm, inside joking, metaphors, nicknames, and attempts at humour everything else is lost and reading it is exhausting. The dialogue reads oddly, and either describes too much or too little through the character's speaking. Bits of conversation sometimes appear to be missing, or in other instances we're completely overloaded with characters describing events verbally. I'm unsure why her family has the need to stand around and comment on the situation at hand entirely through dialogue. Characters, events, and objects are continuously given nicknames with origins that are never explained or make no sense. Tumours for cigarettes? Mermaids for women?
I constantly felt as if I was being told the story, not shown it. The prose just feels uncomfortable and jumpy.
February 28, 2024
What did I just read? I figured at some point I’d understand what was happening, but from beginning to end I was confused and lost. The only reason I didn’t give one star was because I snickered a time or two at dialogue.
January 4, 2016
I still have a hard time understanding that this book was written for adults. I picked it up as a staff recommendation in the library, and so I thought halfway through that it might be misplaced young adult fiction. The teen narrative is, well, a teen narrative, and it didn't translate in any enjoyable way for me. The protagonist - a spoiled, naive teenager - wasn't relatable at all. And the social media style narrative towards the end was a little annoying. Or a lot annoying. I havn't decided. I would actually recommend this to fans of YA, though.
July 29, 2014
Foran has created an interesting plot around his teenage protagonist Xixi Kwok. While camping on a beach outside Hong Kong, she and her parents witness a group of strange women washing ashore. Xixi tries to friend one of them (whom she refers as Mary) and photographs her with her cell phone. Later on Xixi tries to find Mary online - thinking she needs help - and gets herself in trouble.
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Read
September 26, 2014 I liked the dynamics electronics
lives across countries.
Young persons loneliness, coming of age
religion, SARS a virus but many virus'
lives across countries.
Young persons loneliness, coming of age
religion, SARS a virus but many virus'
Read
September 24, 2015Loved the descriptions of places in Hong Kong. It fell apart for me at the end with the social media narrative.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews