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Beijing Payback: A Fast-Paced Revenge Thriller – A College Basketball Player Uncovers His Father's Organized Crime Syndicate
Victor Li is devastated by his father’s murder, and shocked by a confessional letter he finds among his father’s things. In it, his father admits that he was never just a restaurateur—in fact he was part of a vast international crime syndicate that formed during China’s leanest communist years.
Victor travels to Beijing, where he navigates his father’s secret criminal life, confronting decades-old grudges, violent spats, and a shocking new enterprise that the organization wants to undertake. Standing up against it is likely what got his father killed, but Victor remains undeterred. He enlists his growing network of allies and friends to finish what his father started, no matter the costs.
Victor travels to Beijing, where he navigates his father’s secret criminal life, confronting decades-old grudges, violent spats, and a shocking new enterprise that the organization wants to undertake. Standing up against it is likely what got his father killed, but Victor remains undeterred. He enlists his growing network of allies and friends to finish what his father started, no matter the costs.
320 pages, Paperback
First published July 23, 2019
335 people are currently reading
2715 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Nieh
3 books113 followersDaniel Nieh is a writer and translator. He grew up in Portland, Oregon, and has also lived in China, Japan, Singapore, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. He studied Chinese Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Daniel is the author of two novels, BEIJING PAYBACK and TAKE NO NAMES, of which both were named Editor's Choice selections in the New York Times Book Review.
Daniel's translation clients include publishers, universities, nonprofits, and museums around the world. He served as an interpreter at 2008 Beijing Olympics and also works as a contract linguist for the US Department of State. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Esquire.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 226 reviews
July 29, 2019
i will be reviewing this for l.a. review of books. posted today!
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/s...#!
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/s...#!
July 18, 2020
I wrote this book. It's my first book ever. I wanted to write something fun and exciting, a hard-to-put-down book with that "joy of reading" feeling. I tried to include elements of the stories I loved in various subgenres: coming-of-age, murder mystery, immigrant novel, and revenge thriller. That kind of stuff.
It's also a book about how history shapes people and nations. How understanding history can be a stepping stone toward empathy and forgiveness.
And kung fu. There's some kung fu.
I know it's not perfect, but I'm still very proud of it.
It's also a book about how history shapes people and nations. How understanding history can be a stepping stone toward empathy and forgiveness.
And kung fu. There's some kung fu.
I know it's not perfect, but I'm still very proud of it.
July 28, 2019
The black guy is great at basketball, the Jewish guy is good with money and all the women are hot. Not much of an imagination. How about mentioning a woman without telling us about her long hair and legs? Would it be so hard?
April 26, 2021
5 stars - I thought this was fast-paced and smart, and I'm also a friend of the author (we studied abroad together a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away in Shanghai).
I would not classify this book as a thriller at all. Yes, it has action. Yes, there is a clear line drawn between the good and the bad guys. Yes, there is cash and guns and Russian playboys and Chinese mafia. But the writing elevates it to something so much more.
The thriller parts of this book were secondary to the literally gut-wrenching emotional toil that Victor Li has been experiencing since finding out his father was murdered. Victor's devastation is handled with perfect pitch, his loss reinforced again and again as in life, but without feeling repetitious. The fact that his father's posthumous request is for Victor to avenge him and to prevent horrific crimes in which his father was involved in from leaking beyond China's borders sets up Victor's descent into crime. In order to redeem his father, Victor needs to become a criminal.
The sections in the US, with Victor in college on a basketball scholarship, attending practice, games, and parties with his best friends Andre and Eli, feel most authentic and it's here that I hear the strong and clear timber of the author's voice. There's a lot of humor in this book and I chuckled to myself a few times ("and Peking Duck, known here [in Beijing] as Duck"). The dialogue also felt realistic and was peppered by Chinese sayings and parables that I gobbled up like fortune cookies.
It's when his father's protégé, Sun, arrives in the US that the proverbial sh*t starts to hit the fan. Victor is hailed to be his father's second and pick up the baton. But as a naive American college student, does he even stand a chance at accomplishing what Old Li couldn't? A quick and dirty trip to China nearly bests Victor (including one scene involving Baijiu [a crazily potent Chinese liquor], a hammer and a hand, that honestly could have picked up a few tips from that scene in The Alice Network).
I've read a lot of criticism about the women in this book. I thought Jules was a very well-drawn character painted vividly in strong psychological profile by a talented hand. The women in general are peripheral - they don't drive the story and they aren't decision-makers. However, the strongest unifying tie I found amongst them is that they were all protective caretakers, from Jules -Victor's bossy older sister, Wei - Ai's second-in-command sex ninja, and all the way down to Yulia Three, who is the hooker "beard" for Beijing-based French journalist Gregoire.
The themes in this book are much heavier than the cover would have you think, and Victor is persistently ruminating on them, shifting them and chipping away at the the Big Concepts of Identity and Family, and those moons that orbit them, Loyalty, Revenge, and Love:
- Identity (Victor - he is half-Chinese with one foot in each world; his father, Vincent - good guy or bad guy?)
- Family (the family you are born into vs. the family you make, which includes Vincent's Beijing brotherhood of Ouyang, Ai and Zhang, and Victor's roommates, the tight-knit Eli and Andre, and also Sun, Vincent's "adopted" son who was kept a secret from Vincent's real kids, Jules and Victor)
- America (how spoiled, clueless, naive and sheltered are we in a world where professors were sent to labor camps for "reeducation" in Mao's China and prisoners today are being brutally mined for their organs so that "rich alcoholics" in the US can have a second chance to drown another organ?)
I had a sneaky little inkling that the end was going to turn out as it did, but that doesn't stop me from looking forward to the sequel and to what Victor does next.
I would not classify this book as a thriller at all. Yes, it has action. Yes, there is a clear line drawn between the good and the bad guys. Yes, there is cash and guns and Russian playboys and Chinese mafia. But the writing elevates it to something so much more.
The thriller parts of this book were secondary to the literally gut-wrenching emotional toil that Victor Li has been experiencing since finding out his father was murdered. Victor's devastation is handled with perfect pitch, his loss reinforced again and again as in life, but without feeling repetitious. The fact that his father's posthumous request is for Victor to avenge him and to prevent horrific crimes in which his father was involved in from leaking beyond China's borders sets up Victor's descent into crime. In order to redeem his father, Victor needs to become a criminal.
The sections in the US, with Victor in college on a basketball scholarship, attending practice, games, and parties with his best friends Andre and Eli, feel most authentic and it's here that I hear the strong and clear timber of the author's voice. There's a lot of humor in this book and I chuckled to myself a few times ("and Peking Duck, known here [in Beijing] as Duck"). The dialogue also felt realistic and was peppered by Chinese sayings and parables that I gobbled up like fortune cookies.
It's when his father's protégé, Sun, arrives in the US that the proverbial sh*t starts to hit the fan. Victor is hailed to be his father's second and pick up the baton. But as a naive American college student, does he even stand a chance at accomplishing what Old Li couldn't? A quick and dirty trip to China nearly bests Victor (including one scene involving Baijiu [a crazily potent Chinese liquor], a hammer and a hand, that honestly could have picked up a few tips from that scene in The Alice Network).
I've read a lot of criticism about the women in this book. I thought Jules was a very well-drawn character painted vividly in strong psychological profile by a talented hand. The women in general are peripheral - they don't drive the story and they aren't decision-makers. However, the strongest unifying tie I found amongst them is that they were all protective caretakers, from Jules -Victor's bossy older sister, Wei - Ai's second-in-command sex ninja, and all the way down to Yulia Three, who is the hooker "beard" for Beijing-based French journalist Gregoire.
The themes in this book are much heavier than the cover would have you think, and Victor is persistently ruminating on them, shifting them and chipping away at the the Big Concepts of Identity and Family, and those moons that orbit them, Loyalty, Revenge, and Love:
- Identity (Victor - he is half-Chinese with one foot in each world; his father, Vincent - good guy or bad guy?)
- Family (the family you are born into vs. the family you make, which includes Vincent's Beijing brotherhood of Ouyang, Ai and Zhang, and Victor's roommates, the tight-knit Eli and Andre, and also Sun, Vincent's "adopted" son who was kept a secret from Vincent's real kids, Jules and Victor)
- America (how spoiled, clueless, naive and sheltered are we in a world where professors were sent to labor camps for "reeducation" in Mao's China and prisoners today are being brutally mined for their organs so that "rich alcoholics" in the US can have a second chance to drown another organ?)
I had a sneaky little inkling that the end was going to turn out as it did, but that doesn't stop me from looking forward to the sequel and to what Victor does next.
March 22, 2020
Victor Li is a typical Southern California Chinese-American college student, who is into basketball and physical/mental fitness. His father has been murdered, and he and his sister are wondering about their future, when their father's Beijing protégée (Sun) shows up and turns their world upside down, revealing secrets about their father's past. When Victor and Sun fly off to Beijing to find out why Victor's father was killed, it gets silly. About the only thing I liked was Nieh's regular usage of prophetic Mandarin phrases, followed by their English translation. Sadly,too much of the rest were tropes.
May 15, 2019
This was a disappointment. I loved the idea but it meandered a bit that I had a hard time focusing. It almost seemed like it was a kid’s dream version of vengeance for his father. Moreover, the women characters were so peripheral and weakly drawn. Actually, it pretty much only focused on Victor and he wasn’t an interesting enough character to carry the book.
I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.
I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.
September 12, 2019
I took a chance on this book and I'm pleased I did. Though this is a mystery, and a revenge tale, it's also an interesting treatment of grief, a father-son and family relationship. A family that turns out to be way more complicated the more Victor Li and his sister Jules dig into their father's past. When a letter from their father urging them to take on a task for him, and a young man from Beijing shows up and gives them more background on their criminal past, Victor feels impelled to go to China and deal with his father's criminal business partners.
Victor is totally swamped by his feelings for his father and doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about the increasingly odd and dangerous details that emerge, not to mention the increasingly dangerous situations he's drawn into by his father's other. adopted 'son': Sun, who's appearance belies his intelligence and many abilities.
I loved the interactions between Victor and Jules, and the central relationship especially between Victor and Sun. It's a study in contrasts, with Victor's comparatively pampered and safe existence and Sun's hard upbringing and quiet dangerousness, and their very different approaches to life.
And boy, do I ever have to agree with Jules in her assessment of her brother and father, and Victor's thoughtless rush to China on a dubious enterprise:
Though the story wraps up, I feel like the author left things open enough to return to Victor and Jules Li. I hope he does.
Victor is totally swamped by his feelings for his father and doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about the increasingly odd and dangerous details that emerge, not to mention the increasingly dangerous situations he's drawn into by his father's other. adopted 'son': Sun, who's appearance belies his intelligence and many abilities.
I loved the interactions between Victor and Jules, and the central relationship especially between Victor and Sun. It's a study in contrasts, with Victor's comparatively pampered and safe existence and Sun's hard upbringing and quiet dangerousness, and their very different approaches to life.
And boy, do I ever have to agree with Jules in her assessment of her brother and father, and Victor's thoughtless rush to China on a dubious enterprise:
“You men, you throw around these big words like loyalty and revenge, and really you’re just acting like a bunch of baboon males, chasing that adrenaline, thinking with your nutsacks.
Though the story wraps up, I feel like the author left things open enough to return to Victor and Jules Li. I hope he does.
February 10, 2019
If you like the Joe Ide books, I highly recommend this book. It's not Sherlock Holmes, but Nieh's writing draws you in from the beginning.
January 7, 2020
It started not long after the liberalization of the Chinese economy introduced by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. Money started flowing out of the country, and much of it ended up in Canada and the USA. And as the years went by, the flow of funds accelerated with the explosive growth in China. A lot of that money — much of it dirty — has made its way into real estate in New York City, Vancouver, and California. But some has been in the form of direct investment in business. Chinese-English author, translator, and model Daniel Nieh‘s excellent thriller, Beijing Payback, tells the tale of one such business with its roots in dirty money from China as the entrepreneur who established it meets a violent end.
Victor Li’s father has been stabbed to death, upending his career at San Diego State University as a basketball player. The old man had built a chain of four Chinese restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley, and Victor and his older sister, Juliana (Jules), expect to inherit them. But their father’s dodgy lawyer informs them that the restaurants were owned instead by a company in Beijing. As a rough-hewn character — likely a gangster — arrives to take charge of the restaurants, Victor grows suspicious about who had murdered his father. And when he comes across a long letter from the old man, he learns that everything he had believed about their life in China was wrong — and that his father’s last wish was for him to fly to Beijing to right a terrible wrong.
In Beijing Payback, Daniel Nieh has crafted a superior thriller informed by his personal experience of living and working in Beijing and his knowledge of Chinese history. It’s hard to believe that Nieh hasn’t personally encountered some of the underworld types he writes about: his story about dirty money from China reeks of credibility. And long passages about the Cultural Revolution are especially poignant and lift the story above the run-of-the-mill mystery.
Victor Li’s father has been stabbed to death, upending his career at San Diego State University as a basketball player. The old man had built a chain of four Chinese restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley, and Victor and his older sister, Juliana (Jules), expect to inherit them. But their father’s dodgy lawyer informs them that the restaurants were owned instead by a company in Beijing. As a rough-hewn character — likely a gangster — arrives to take charge of the restaurants, Victor grows suspicious about who had murdered his father. And when he comes across a long letter from the old man, he learns that everything he had believed about their life in China was wrong — and that his father’s last wish was for him to fly to Beijing to right a terrible wrong.
In Beijing Payback, Daniel Nieh has crafted a superior thriller informed by his personal experience of living and working in Beijing and his knowledge of Chinese history. It’s hard to believe that Nieh hasn’t personally encountered some of the underworld types he writes about: his story about dirty money from China reeks of credibility. And long passages about the Cultural Revolution are especially poignant and lift the story above the run-of-the-mill mystery.
September 3, 2019
This book fails the Bechdel Test. The women are props or mere vehicles for the men to do something.
It is fast paced and I was surprised how I got sucked into it.
The part where and premise of a SDSU college student, basketball player, hapa guy going to Red China and trying to avenge his father's death is completely implausible. Suspend your belief (or do you have to suspend your disbelief?) And his father's "guy Friday" is also just too convenient.
Otherwise, it's well written. And again the quick pacing, esp for a murder mystery, is indisputable.
(Relevant to nothing. Author describing the short shorts some women wear as looking like diapers was funny.)
It is fast paced and I was surprised how I got sucked into it.
The part where and premise of a SDSU college student, basketball player, hapa guy going to Red China and trying to avenge his father's death is completely implausible. Suspend your belief (or do you have to suspend your disbelief?) And his father's "guy Friday" is also just too convenient.
Otherwise, it's well written. And again the quick pacing, esp for a murder mystery, is indisputable.
(Relevant to nothing. Author describing the short shorts some women wear as looking like diapers was funny.)
November 9, 2019
Eh. I wanted to like this a lot and ultimately didn't finish it. I didn't end up caring about any of the characters or what happened to them.
July 7, 2019
Beijing Payback finds Victor and his sister Jules mourning the murder of their father. In the following days, Victor is given a letter from his father that reveals he has been living a secret life. Not only is he running 4 restaurants, but he is also one of four founders of a crime syndicate in Beijing. Enter Sun, Old Li's protege since his childhood, who takes him on a mission to avenge his father's death and expose the syndicate, who his father says in the letter, killed him.
This was a very fast paced read with plenty of action. I enjoyed how the characters interact with each other, the detail of the settings, and little bits of humor thrown in by the author. The group of Victor, Jules, Eli, and Andre are well developed for their various roles, and you can tell that they truly love and care for each other. Sun was also well developed. The writing and insight into Chinese culture and the brief history we are given was well done. An excellent book, overall.
My appreciation to NetGalley and HarperCollins for gifting me an e-copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
This was a very fast paced read with plenty of action. I enjoyed how the characters interact with each other, the detail of the settings, and little bits of humor thrown in by the author. The group of Victor, Jules, Eli, and Andre are well developed for their various roles, and you can tell that they truly love and care for each other. Sun was also well developed. The writing and insight into Chinese culture and the brief history we are given was well done. An excellent book, overall.
My appreciation to NetGalley and HarperCollins for gifting me an e-copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
December 15, 2020
A slapstick attempt at thriller that really played on stereotypes and men being the MAN. But also sensitive cause it’s the 21st century and even though I’m dangerous I’m delicate ya know??
This bored me from chapter one. I only continued on with it as a few reviews promised me it was good. Everyone of you are liars and my time has been wasted.
The synopsis tells you everything - there are no real surprises and it’s basically a university hip macho guy saving the day with every possible thriller stereotype thrown in and every scenario with the villains vanquished in 10 seconds. I wouldn’t recommend this to nobody.
This bored me from chapter one. I only continued on with it as a few reviews promised me it was good. Everyone of you are liars and my time has been wasted.
The synopsis tells you everything - there are no real surprises and it’s basically a university hip macho guy saving the day with every possible thriller stereotype thrown in and every scenario with the villains vanquished in 10 seconds. I wouldn’t recommend this to nobody.
August 12, 2019
I started reading this book because a review promised a fast-paced day of exciting reading. Instead I found irritating characters, stiff silly dialogue and an unrealistic plot. It had a surprise ending but by the time I got to the end I so strongly disliked Victor (the book’s narrator) that I didn’t care. I had no feelings for any of the characters.
You know in horror movies where you shout at the screen “Don’t go in there!” but the idiot characters bungle their way in to situations where wise people don’t tread? That’s this book. Disappointing.
You know in horror movies where you shout at the screen “Don’t go in there!” but the idiot characters bungle their way in to situations where wise people don’t tread? That’s this book. Disappointing.
February 16, 2020
If I had brought sentences like this to my intro creative writing class in college I would have been disemboweled:
"Wei's got the hood of her sweatshirt pulled down over her forehead, the partial concealment lending yet more allure to the exquisite hint of her face that remains visible."
"Wei's got the hood of her sweatshirt pulled down over her forehead, the partial concealment lending yet more allure to the exquisite hint of her face that remains visible."
April 3, 2019
Fantastic read. It has everything you want in a thriller -- great action, humor, memorable characters, plus nuggets of wisdom about being a human in the 21st century.
September 4, 2019
Quick little thriller. Bonus points for light and dark humor. Extra points for author being beyond gorgeous.
May 20, 2019
My thoughts on what worked for me:
The well-developed characters
I particularly liked the fun interplay between Victor, his long-time best buddy Andre, and their roommate Eli. They’re funny, quirky, and genuinely seem to care about each other, though in their college-boy phase of life, that looks more like back-slapping and fist-bumping than hugs and crying on each other’s shoulders. The interaction between Victor and his two roommates helps show Victor’s emotions of grief at his dad’s murder and his anger at the kid-glove treatment the rest of the world gives him.
Jules, Victor’s sister, is a terrific character, too. She’s irritating, acid-tongued, and uptight, but she assesses situations better than Victor. She deeply loves her brother. Her character arc, while not deeply developed, is compelling and right for her character.
The backstory
There’s a lot of background information that we need as we read this book: old Li’s friendship and business dealings with the brotherhood, his character, etc. Not all of it can be conveyed in the present time because he’s dead when the novel opens. Nieh uses a lengthy letter from Li to his son to give us a picture of Li, his childhood (including really interesting information about the changes in Chinese culture after the revolution), his friendships with the others in the brotherhood, and how and why he had deceived his children. Nieh gives Li a writing voice of his own that is both revealing and entertaining and in sync with the other accounts of his personality. Even though all of it is backstory, it moves the story along.
The strong ending
Obviously, I’m not going to spoil it for you! But after everything the characters have been through in both America and China, this resolution is satisfying. Well done.
What didn’t work for me:
The middle section in Beijing slowed me down. Somehow, even with the characters running into life-threatening danger, I felt that the writing dragged its feet a bit. Victor’s thoughts center around his anger at his father for his double life, his grief, and his father’s instructions. His father’s last instructions have shattered his world but also opened it to a bigger one. It’s compelling for a while, but I got a bit tired of the repetition.
There’s also a sex scene thrown in late in the novel. (Victor’s inability to hook up with the women he wants to hook up with has been a recurring motif in the book.) It doesn’t add much to the story.
Overall, a strong novel.
Note: I received a copy of this novel from HarperCollins & Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This review also appears on Bookbub and my personal blog.
The well-developed characters
I particularly liked the fun interplay between Victor, his long-time best buddy Andre, and their roommate Eli. They’re funny, quirky, and genuinely seem to care about each other, though in their college-boy phase of life, that looks more like back-slapping and fist-bumping than hugs and crying on each other’s shoulders. The interaction between Victor and his two roommates helps show Victor’s emotions of grief at his dad’s murder and his anger at the kid-glove treatment the rest of the world gives him.
Jules, Victor’s sister, is a terrific character, too. She’s irritating, acid-tongued, and uptight, but she assesses situations better than Victor. She deeply loves her brother. Her character arc, while not deeply developed, is compelling and right for her character.
The backstory
There’s a lot of background information that we need as we read this book: old Li’s friendship and business dealings with the brotherhood, his character, etc. Not all of it can be conveyed in the present time because he’s dead when the novel opens. Nieh uses a lengthy letter from Li to his son to give us a picture of Li, his childhood (including really interesting information about the changes in Chinese culture after the revolution), his friendships with the others in the brotherhood, and how and why he had deceived his children. Nieh gives Li a writing voice of his own that is both revealing and entertaining and in sync with the other accounts of his personality. Even though all of it is backstory, it moves the story along.
The strong ending
Obviously, I’m not going to spoil it for you! But after everything the characters have been through in both America and China, this resolution is satisfying. Well done.
What didn’t work for me:
The middle section in Beijing slowed me down. Somehow, even with the characters running into life-threatening danger, I felt that the writing dragged its feet a bit. Victor’s thoughts center around his anger at his father for his double life, his grief, and his father’s instructions. His father’s last instructions have shattered his world but also opened it to a bigger one. It’s compelling for a while, but I got a bit tired of the repetition.
There’s also a sex scene thrown in late in the novel. (Victor’s inability to hook up with the women he wants to hook up with has been a recurring motif in the book.) It doesn’t add much to the story.
Overall, a strong novel.
Note: I received a copy of this novel from HarperCollins & Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This review also appears on Bookbub and my personal blog.
July 17, 2019
Imagine you're a college student and your father Li is murdered. Horrible, right? Well, then imagine that you discover that he was just running a restaurant, he was running a crime organization that started in China years ago and continues today. That's what Victor, and his sister Jules are faced with. Victor has never taken things too seriously but he has good friends in Andre and Eli. Can he or should he trust Sun, who turns up and claims to have been his protege and to have access to the people who killed him? Not many would get on a plane to Beijing and take on this mysterious organization but that's what Victor does. Some minor practicalities aside, this is a fast paced, well written debut that occasionally gets a little off track but is still highly readable. There's twists, turns, and lots of action. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Those who like gritty little guy against the bad guys tales should try this one.
August 4, 2019
Long, winding, and meandering revenge story that seemed like it was written for the screen, not a book. Lots of violence and action sequences that turned out great for a young and inexperienced kid from America. I listened to the audiobook which was the best way to consume it if you have any experience with the Chinese language or Beijing. Embarrassingly shallow versions of female characters: the dead mother who gets hardly a mention, the angry sister who cusses out her brother at every opportunity, and the sexy, sophisticated, exotic crime-world woman who seduces him for her own nefarious purposes, but of course has a heart of gold in there somewhere.
August 12, 2019
This was a fast-paced, surprising and stylish thriller, made even more compelling by the skillful way that Victor moves between worlds - obviously America to China, but also from the comfort of a dorm room to the unknown dangers of the Beijing underbelly. A less thoughtful novelist would gloss over the severe emotional impact of everything that Victor undergoes in such a short amount of time. Nieh keeps the psychological undertow of all the reeling action front and center, and it makes a big difference. An auspicious debut novel!
May 9, 2022
Imagine you're a college student and your father Li is murdered. Horrible, right? Well, then imagine that you discover that he was just running a restaurant, he was running a crime organization that started in China years ago and continues today. That's what Victor, and his sister Jules are faced with.Beijing Payback was both interesting and confusing. Perhaps I am just slow, but keeping up with the action in Beijing was not always easy. I wondered how our protagonist was able to get himself into the situations he did and come out alive. But, it's a story, right?
January 5, 2020
Fast paced thriller that had me hooked from the 1st page. I could not put the book down and raced through it. Kudos to the author, hard to believe that this is his first book.
July 29, 2020
Read this because this is the PBSxNYT book club selection for August 2020. And because it seems like an easy read. And it is.
Like how some other reviews pointed out, parts of it were unimaginative and stereotypical. But I do find it cute, in the way that it actually reflects faithfully what those young cali ABC (America-born Chinese) kids care about. And also that they're trying to use what they learned during those reluctant times spent at Sunday Chinese school. By they I meant not only Daniel Nieh but also the narrator Ewan Chung for the audiobook. Some Chinese used in this book had this old-school flare that I'm sure Daniel and Ewan pore over their dictionaries for. I find that heart-warming. A for effort.
If some more American readers get to know about Fa Lun Gung and other controversies that's just cherry on top.
Like how some other reviews pointed out, parts of it were unimaginative and stereotypical. But I do find it cute, in the way that it actually reflects faithfully what those young cali ABC (America-born Chinese) kids care about. And also that they're trying to use what they learned during those reluctant times spent at Sunday Chinese school. By they I meant not only Daniel Nieh but also the narrator Ewan Chung for the audiobook. Some Chinese used in this book had this old-school flare that I'm sure Daniel and Ewan pore over their dictionaries for. I find that heart-warming. A for effort.
If some more American readers get to know about Fa Lun Gung and other controversies that's just cherry on top.
July 25, 2021
Victor is a college student, a basketball player whose best friend is being courted by scouts. His mother recently passed, and his sister lives away, while Victor lives with his buddies near campus. Then his father is found murdered in the office of his restaurant. Victor goes into free fall.
His dad is gone. His dad was the kind of dad who went to Victor's games, made him work at the restaurant, and sprinkled coaching advice with Chinese insights. Victor's dad is gone, and Victor is lost.
and no child can really know their parents, can they? In this case, that lack of knowledge is stunning.
First, Victor learns about the murder, then the restaurants, his dad's employees, his dad's life, Beijing. An amazing quest. A fabulous thriller.
Best beach book ever.
His dad is gone. His dad was the kind of dad who went to Victor's games, made him work at the restaurant, and sprinkled coaching advice with Chinese insights. Victor's dad is gone, and Victor is lost.
and no child can really know their parents, can they? In this case, that lack of knowledge is stunning.
First, Victor learns about the murder, then the restaurants, his dad's employees, his dad's life, Beijing. An amazing quest. A fabulous thriller.
Best beach book ever.
January 22, 2022
I don't quite understand all the hate on these Goodreads reviews. Sure, the story is a bit over the top, but that's the case for many a thriller. It was a fun story and wasn't so fantastical that I was ever really pulled out of it. I liked the characters, I really liked the type of attention to detail included in the story. It felt very distinctly Asian American. His life, well, pre his father's death, and his relationships, all felt very real. Noticing accents and struggles with his father's tongue and reconciling the past with his previous perception of it, I liked all of that a lot.
November 16, 2019
This book was the right balance of slightly implausible but entertaining thriller/action plot and exploring interesting ideas about privilege, culture, and the context of morality. I like books that can both entertain me and make me think about something, and this one hit the mark.
May 12, 2021
I wanted to like this more than I did. I was hoping for something like a gritty, violent K-drama, and while there's plenty of action and violence, and I could see what the author was going for (moral ambiguity; dichotomies of US-China and superficial law-corrupt underbelly; main character's experiences of biculturalism and biracial existence), this ultimately fell flat for me. Even though it was at least partially intended by the author, I found the main character self-indulgent and annoying. At the end, he was supposed to have matured, but then he just seemed like a possible wish-fulfillment hardened Asian-American guy who has previously been made fun of.
July 8, 2022
Somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars. This is pretty much an action movie in the form of a book- the fights are deadly and the girls are sexy. The book was fast-paced and fun, and there are also some pieces of writing in here that I really enjoyed (the piece where the main character was making breakfast while thinking about his parents? loved that). This is far from perfect (some of the characters could be better developed, and that may be a symptom of this being a lot like an action movie), but it was just so much fun for me to read, especially since I went in knowing basically nothing about the book.
June 26, 2023
meh. main character was supposed to be likeable but just wasn’t.
here’s my favorite part:
“She’s half Puerto Rican. Look at her belly button, dude! You’re telling me you don’t want to go find out what she smells like? You know, Victor, you’re always complaining about not getting any, but seriously you wouldn’t know pussy if it hit you in the face. You’re obsessed with this weird notion that girls think Asian guys are nerds. You’re not a diminuative gamer from Daegu, you’re a racially exotic college athlete. I’m an uncoordinated programmer with eczema and freckles,” yada yada yada
really beautiful writing 😍
the chinese proverbs added in were cool tho, i’ll say that
here’s my favorite part:
“She’s half Puerto Rican. Look at her belly button, dude! You’re telling me you don’t want to go find out what she smells like? You know, Victor, you’re always complaining about not getting any, but seriously you wouldn’t know pussy if it hit you in the face. You’re obsessed with this weird notion that girls think Asian guys are nerds. You’re not a diminuative gamer from Daegu, you’re a racially exotic college athlete. I’m an uncoordinated programmer with eczema and freckles,” yada yada yada
really beautiful writing 😍
the chinese proverbs added in were cool tho, i’ll say that
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