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  • Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (One World Essentials)
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Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (One World Essentials) Kindle Edition

4.5 out of 5 stars 3,002 ratings
4.2 on Goodreads
43,096 ratings

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST •NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE •A ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness

“Brilliant . . . To read this book is to become more human.”—Claudia Rankine, author of
Citizen

In development as a television series starring and adapted by Greta Lee • One of Time’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, New Statesman, BuzzFeed, Esquire, The New York Public Library, and Book Riot

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.

Binding these essays together is Hong’s theory of “minor feelings.” As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they’re dissonant—and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her.

With sly humor and a poet’s searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and female friendship. A radically honest work of art,
Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche—and of a writer’s search to both uncover and speak the truth.

Praise for Minor Feelings

“Hong begins her new book of essays with a bang. . . .The essays wander a variegated terrain of memoir, criticism and polemic, oscillating between smooth proclamations of certainty and twitches of self-doubt. . . .
Minor Feelings is studded with moments [of] candor and dark humor shot through with glittering self-awareness.”The New York Times

“Hong uses her own experiences as a jumping off point to examine race and emotion in the United States.”
Newsweek

“Powerful . . . [Hong] brings together memoiristic personal essay and reflection, historical accounts and modern reporting, and other works of art and writing, in order to amplify a multitude of voices and capture Asian America as a collection of contradictions. She does so with sharp wit and radical transparency.”
Salon

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There are 12 books in this series.
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    Sold by: Random House Canada, Incorp.

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From the Publisher

NPR says, “Hong uses her life’s flashpoints to give voice to a wider Asian American experience.”

Marie Claire says, “Nimble, smart & deliberate, Minor Feelings is a major conversation starter.”

Kirkus Reviews says, “Fierce and timely. A proactively incisive debut.”

Buzzfeed says, “The kind of trenchant social critique that’s bound to get people talking.”

Product description

Review

“[A] formidable new essay collection . . . I read Minor Feelings in a fugue of enveloping recognition and distancing flinch. . . . [Cathy Park] Hong is writing in agonized pursuit of a liberation that doesn’t look white—a new sound, a new affect, a new consciousness—and the result feels like what she was waiting for.”—Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror

Minor Feelings is a major reckoning, pulling no punches as the author uses her life’s flashpoints to give voice to a wider Asian American experience, one with cascading consequences.”—Nʸ

“Hong dissects her experiences as an Asian American to create an intricate meditation on racial awareness in the U.S. Through a combination of cultural criticism and personal stories, Hong, a poet, lays bare the shame and confusion she felt in her youth as the daughter of Korean immigrants, and the way those feelings morphed as she grew older. From analyzing Richard Pryor’s stand-up to interrogating her relationship with the English language, Hong underscores essential themes of identity and otherness.”
Time

“Cathy Park Hong’s new memoir confronts the tough questions of Asian American identity. Drawing its title from Hong’s theory regarding the impact of racial stereotypes and lies on ethnic minorities, this memoir-in-essays is a must-read at a time of rising racist violence and distrust.”
Bustle

“An incendiary nonfiction book about a pressing social issue of the day . . . With its mix of the personal and political,
Minor Feelings is the kind of trenchant social critique that’s bound to get people talking.”BuzzFeed

“Hong busts out of the closed loop of Asian American discourse and takes off at a run. It’s not that she doesn’t address the model minority myth, the brutality of casual racism, or the mortifications of a first-gen childhood; she writes passionately about how Asians are dismissed, the lowly ‘carpenter ants of the service industry.’ It’s just that she also makes every ‘immigrant talking point,’ as she calls them, viscerally specific. . . . Hong’s essays make a case for solidarity that begins at self-awareness.”
GEN

“At-times funny, often deeply thought-provoking work . . .
Minor Feelings is an urgent consideration of identity, social structures, and artistic practice. It’s a necessary intervention in a world burgeoning with creativity but stymied by a lack of language and ability to grapple with nuance. Hong takes a step in remedying that.”Chicago Review of Books

“Self aware and relentlessly sharp essays. Nimble, smart, and deliberate,
Minor Feelings is a major conversation starter.”Marie Claire

“With radical candor, Cathy Hong Park critically examines what it means to be Asian American today and challenges herself and her readers to abandon the idea of a monolithic Asian American experience and instead acknowledge a range of racialized emotions which have been heretofore dismissed.”
Ms.

“Part memoir, part cultural criticism, the poet and essayist’s Cathy Park Hong’s first book of prose had me underlining and annotating nearly every page.”
—R. O. Kwon, Electric Literature

About the Author

Cathy Park Hongis the author of three poetry collections including Dance Dance Revolution, chosen by Adrienne Rich for the Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Engine Empire. Hong is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her poems have been published in Poetry, The New York Times, The Paris Review, ѳɱԱ’s, Boston Review, and other journals. She is the poetry editor of The New Republic and full professor at the Rutgers University–Newark MFA program in poetry.In 2021, she was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07VP1SJ4F
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ One World
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ Feb. 25 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 5.5 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 225 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1984820372
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Part of series ‏ : ‎ One World Essentials
  • 鶹 Rank: #120,622 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 3,002 ratings

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4.5 out of 5 stars
3,002 global ratings

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Top reviews from Canada

  • Reviewed in Canada on November 20, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    inspiring ideas and perfect delivery!
  • Reviewed in Canada on November 13, 2020
    One of the best books of 2020
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in Canada on July 30, 2022
    In 2020 Vancouver BC my home was called the anti-asian hate crime capital in North America. With 1 out of 2 asian descendants reporting a hate crime.*

    Cathy Park Hong takes the time to provide personal stories from her early 20s in university to today in her 40s stating how she started thinking about writing this book because of her daughter.

    The book title came from theorist Sianne Ngai who wrote extensively about negative emotions, and how minor feelings are "non-cathartic states of emotion." Another example is when she is told that "Things are so much better here" and "Asians are so successful," when she feels like a failure.

    In the chapter called “The end of white innocence” she shares how there was a lot of shame in her life. She also provides an example of living in the USA and not realizing the cultural nuances. Cathy was in grade 4 when she went to school wearing a red shirt with a white silhouette of a bunny. During school a student came up to her to ask "do you know what that means?" The author said no and saw the student smirk and walk away. Cathy is filled with shame and doesn’t know why. It was a playboy bunny shirt. This is common for immigrant children to be made fun of over something that is beyond them.

    I discussed this book with my partner Alex who is Filipino and he shared how he was told to always be good and don’t cause a scene. These comments stick with us and start to affect our identity as "the good asian student."

    This book is raw and real and I am grateful for the author to share her experience with the world.
    2 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in Canada on December 28, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    This is a high standard novel, it needs a good knowlege of English to understand the content.It is no good for ordinary people try to comprehend.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Eena
    4.0 out of 5 stars Haven’t read the book yet, reviewing for the condition
    Reviewed in Belgium on January 24, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Book arrived fast and glad it’s on discount, but there’s a crease on the cover. Can’t wait to read this tho
    Customer image
    Eena
    4.0 out of 5 stars
    Haven’t read the book yet, reviewing for the condition

    Reviewed in Belgium on January 24, 2023
    Book arrived fast and glad it’s on discount, but there’s a crease on the cover. Can’t wait to read this tho
    Images in this review
    Customer image
  • Ninaom1
    4.0 out of 5 stars painful and necessary
    Reviewed in the Netherlands on April 11, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    This wasn’t an easy read, but it was a worthwhile one. Cathy reckons with all the complexities regarding race and privilege without providing a clear cut answer and while always keeping humanity in mind.
  • Kindle Customer
    1.0 out of 5 stars Do not buy the Indian edition. It's extremely poor quality!
    Reviewed in India on August 23, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    Published by Hachette India for South Asia this is one of the cheapest cover and paper I've seen sold for rs 500. Avoid. And there's no way to get a refund!
  • Suzette
    5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful meditation on what it means to be Asian in the white western world
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Minor Feelings is remarkable and does exactly what it says on the tin. Hong describes the small, hard-to-reach nooks of how it really feels to be an Asian person living in the white western world, and exposes them with laser-fine and startling accuracy. She blends a mixture of anecdote, history and autobiography with wonderful mastery. As an Asian person, you'll feel vindicated for every time you *felt* that something that happened to you was about race, as a non-Asian person you'll have your eyes opened to the subtlety of Asian-racism; its systemic-ness, its invisibility and the notion of it being acceptable (hey, the nail bar lady wants your money after all, if she gets your polish wrong you've the right to be rude, right? right?). Everybody should read it and I'll be telling everyone about it.
  • patisserie
    5.0 out of 5 stars Belle pièce sur un thème bien complex
    Reviewed in France on October 10, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Écrit clairement, avec beaucoup d'esprit, de perspicacité et le sérieux que le thème mérite, ce livre est pour ceux qui se demandent ce qui se cache derrière cette frustration individuelle et collective ressentie par de nombreux Américains d'origine asiatique à qui on dit si souvent que leurs sentiments sont mineurs. Il met en évidence pourquoi leur frustration, malgré le fait que leur histoire le niveau de violence auquel sont confrontés d'autres groupes minoritaires, est néanmoins profonde pour des raisons qui leur sont propres.
    Report

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