Free Food for Millionaires

"Free Food For Millionaires" is engaging and exceptionally well-written story by Min Jin Lee. The story is medium paced and written in third person. Every character is portrayed with depth. The main protagonist of the story is Casey Han. It's about the difficulties she faces as she moves from her traditional Korean upbringing to a more contemporary American lifestyle, as well as the complexities of cultural divides, familial pressure, personal identity, and class problems. Reading this book was a lot of fun, so I want to read other books written by Min Jin Lee as well.

Really loved this one. Incredible characters and dialogue driven set pieces. Excited to see Yang's TV show based on it.

One sentence synopsis... Fresh out of Princeton with an economics degree, a white boyfriend, and no job, Casey Han, struggles to reconcile her glamorous Manhattan tastes with the expectations of her Korean-American community in Queens. .

Read it if you like... ‘Crazy Rich Asians' meets Lee's other novel, ‘Pachinko'

Dream casting... Glen Powell and John Cho as Casey's rival love interests Jay and Unu.

Well written, but the story developes terribly slowly. I lost interest half way through.

Fun summer read if you aren't looking for something too serious and don't mind dealing with annoying characters and unfinished sub-plots. Its a large book but a quick read if you want something for your public transit commute or to relax with.

I feel as though I was nice in giving this book one star.

Why did I continue reading through the end? I wanted to see if there were any redeeming qualities to the book. I found Casey Han, the protagonist, to be insipid, irresponsible, and 2-dimensional at best. The other characters followed suit - sometimes surly, sometimes sexy, sometimes bewildering and bizarre - and the minor plot lines fell flat. I still have no idea what on earth happened at the end of the book; it left me feeling as though I started at the beginning.

This book was really disappointing for me. It draws the reader in quickly, following the life of a young, first-generation Korean woman after her graduation from Princeton in the mid-90's. She is ambivalent about everything, from her job, graduate school, and her love life, and seems to wander from place to place without really finding what she's searching for. This novel had such potential with captivating characters and an engrossing story line, but the ending left so much unexplained and at loose ends, that I felt let down by the author. A good read, but don't expect a great finish.