Zana’s Reviews > Unprecedented Times > Status Update

“It’s not very interesting to talk about one’s parents, I say. I think there is a reason they are killed off in children’s books. Because how are you supposed to change your life if adults are on your ass?”

Damn girl

“I remember how, back in middle school, when I was pathetic, I’d have crushes on boys who didn’t like me back. Still, I would befriend them, give them advice for how to woo their real crushes, girls on the cheer squad, because I wanted so desperately to feel loved, even secondhand.”

Oh no

“I love Georgia, but white girls always choose each other—a fact of physics as inalterable as gravity.”

Lol damn

“Do you think we’re acting like a real couple? I say. There’s actually a literal epidemic of Indian girls dating Jewish people. My mom thinks we get along well with you guys. Like, we have similar family values, apparently.”

👁️👄👁️

“He’s referring to you by your initials, says Georgia. That means you’re a real writer.”

Them's the rules

“I figure out when Georgia and Derek are having sex because I have Georgia’s location on my phone and she becomes stationary for a while. She is a prone blue dot, unavailable to respond to my texts or make jokes about his dead-fish face.”

Girl

“The horrible truth: Georgia is not as pretty as me— this is an objective fact. And yet she matches with more men than I ever did. Why do I only match with men my color or darker, whereas Georgia racks up the entire United Nations? Why do the men of Stanford prefer a girl with no lips?”

Girl why are you like this

“I imagine my mother and father at our four-seater table. A feast of my least favorite foods. And this makes me sound like a diasporic poet, but I wish I could make her happy like a round yellow mango. I can’t remember the last time I did that.”

I'm probably the last Asian to learn about mango diaspora poetry

“He cut me a fresh mango from the garden, Mom says. And for lunch, I made all the foods you don’t like to eat. Like salty upma. Appa was so happy. We are free now to eat whatever we like.”

Yikes

“Sex with Esme is a whole different beast than sex with Trevor Yates. There is no sweaty thrusting, no penis like a secret, sentient little alien.”

Sentient??