Throwback Thursday: Wait for Me

Wait for Me by An Na 2006
Putnam

Rating: 2.5/5

IQ "Even the most insipid song had something. A beat, a melody, that lone bass holding everything together. But when a song was right, when everything fell together, each note, each rise and dip of the voice filled me with a sense of yearning. A vastness. The sensation of flight seeping into my skin until I was skimming through the air, the music holding me aloft." Mina pg. 6

Mina is a lot like the lone bass described in the IQ, she seems to be holding her family together. She's president of the Honor Society, headed to Harvard with straight A and she works at her family's dry cleaners. She also watches out for younger sister, Suna who is hearing-impaired. However, Mina is not nearly as perfect as she appears, her life has been carefully constructed out of lies. This story is told in the alternating points of view between Mina and Suna.


I just couldn't get into this book. The prose was beautiful, but I just didn't care for this story. Maybe I'm tired of the demanding immigrant mother who just doesn't understand. I don't know what it was but I never connected with Mina or Suna. It didn't seem necessary to have Suna's point of view in the novel anyway, her point of view was usually about two pages and her view of the world was rather fuzzy. She's supposed to be going into middle school, but she acted really immature at times. I didn't have too much sympathy for Mina either. I did wish her mom wasn't so strict (and racist towards Latinos), but all the trouble Mina got in and was a result of the hole she dug for herself. She couldn't blame it all on her mom. Honestly, sometimes I think she just lacked common sense. And towards the end she does something awful towards Ysrael and I was appalled. SPOILER/Hightlight to Read: When she doesn't stand up for Ysrael after he is accused of stealing from the family. Even though it's her that's been stealing, my mouth dropped. And then after she fails to apologize he still takes her BACK! I would have dumped her so fast...

I picked up this book after reading a review at the Writers of Color 50 Book challenge because it mentioned an interracial romance. Mina falls in love with Ysrael, a Mexican immigrant. There are not many YA stories that deal with interracial romance between two POC. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with books about two POC being in love with each other, or a POC and a white person being love, or two white people in love (as long as there is some diversity in the romance about the two white main characters). However, I want to see more YA books that show that not only do black and white people date each other, but so do Indians and African Americans, Koreans and Mexicans (in the case of Wait For Me), Latinos and Native Americans, etc. Ysrael was the only character I really felt something for. He was incredibly sweet, talented (he dreams of being a singer/musician) and patient. I liked how this novel was all about scars; both physical and emotional ones. Ysrael has a scar on his face that causes him much pain, especially when he was a child and it was much worse (some American doctors fixed it for him, but needless to say he's bitter about their treatment of him and his family). The emotional scars have more to do with a mom who puts so much pressure on her children and manipulation. A few of the characters in the novel are just using each other, including Mina's mother.

Wait for Me was a disappointment for me, but it tells a good story with some rare elements in YA; interracial dating between POC, and the handling of a disability. The characters were mostly underdeveloped, perhaps the novel was too short for the reader to really connect to the characters. I felt detached to all that was occurring throughout the book except for the romance between Ysrael and Mina. Their romance developed slowly and it felt authentic. The ending was surprise because it seemed far too abrupt. I was sure the epilogue would clarify things but it doesn't.

Disclosure: From the library

The Fold

The Fold by An Na

Rating: 3.5/5

IQ “What might make you happy one minute might not make you happy the next. What is beautiful now won’t be later. Everything is always changing. You have to know what is true to you.” Helen

Joyce never used to care that much about how she looked, but that was before she met JFK—John Ford Kang, the most gorgeous guy in school. And it doesn't help that she's constantly being compared to her beautiful older sister, Helen. Then her rich plastic-surgery-addict aunt offers Joyce a gift to "fix" a part of herself she'd never realized needed fixing—her eyes. Joyce has heard of the fold surgery—a common procedure meant to make Asian women's eyes seem "prettier" and more "American"—but she's not sure she wants to go through with it. Her friend Gina can't believe she isn't thrilled. After all, the plastic surgeon has shown Joyce that her new eyes will make her look just like Helen—but is that necessarily a good thing?

The Fold taught me a lot. I wanted to read this book because I knew nothing about fold surgery. I couldn’t imagine why an Asian person would do that. I love Asian eyes, I think they’re gorgeous (I would love to have them!)! It just goes to show you that every culture (and every person) has something about themselves that they don’t like.

The funniest (and my favorite) character was Andy, Joyce’s younger brother. He’s always eavesdropping and he wants to be in the NBA, but his family doesn’t think he can, because he’s so short. They hope it’s a phase since he’s only in middle school. Andy’s solution to making himself taller is hilarious but sad at the same time. Also, I love how Joyce and Andy gave their aunt the code name Michael. Her real name is Gomo, but they call her Michael because of all the plastic surgeries she’s gotten (eight), like the singer Michael Jackson. I also really liked Helen, but I thought her story was pretty predictable. She was sweet and she gave Joyce some good advice (that she often chose not to listen to). I thought Joyce was too harsh on her sister and was pretty selfish, always thinking about herself.

One of my least favorite characters was Gina, Joyce’s best friend. She was so caught up in being beautiful and helping Joyce become beautiful that she didn’t seem to care about the repercussions of the eye fold surgery. She just wanted Joyce to get the surgery. I felt that Gina wasn’t a good friend because she never told Joyce “You’re already pretty, you don’t need surgery.” She seemed to think that Joyce was ‘ugly’ enough to need the surgery. But at other times she seemed like a loyal friend.

Something that really annoyed me about this book was the lack of explanations of the Korean words. When Joyce greeted her aunt she says ‘on-young-ha-say-yo Gomo”. I’m sure that’s a greeting but I would like to know what it means. Also does Gomo just mean aunt or is it the aunt’s real name? The food dishes were never explained either, I’m not familiar with Korean food so I didn’t recognize many of their names and I was curious about what was in certain dishes (like bi-bim bop). Questions like this ran repeatedly through my mind while I read this book.

On the other hand, I really liked the descriptions at the Korean community. It was very interesting and a lot of their views on certain issues were a lot like other immigrants (I speak from experience!). They were a very close-knit community, which was good and bad. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, but they also looked out for each other. The characters discuss the ideal Korean beauty and it’s sad but enlightening at the same time.

I learned from this book, but I don’t think I would pick it up and read it again anytime soon, although I think the topic is important to read about.