American Born Chinese

(notes on 6/27/2023) this was a reread (dates are estimated, but definitely during june 2023), only brought on by me watching 2/3 of the disney+ television adaptation (mediocre, imo, despite the cast) and wanting to revisit the source material to see if the MC was as insufferable in the graphic novel as he is in the show. i last read this a very long time ago, likely close to release date, and i've kept it on my shelf for this long because it was a showoff title for my asian american lit collection. i can't say i love it now or find as much importance in it the further away from high school i get, but it was certainly a book of its time.

i think it embellishes the story of the monkey king and i'm kinda intrigued about how the OG story actually went, because i only remember bits and pieces from my upbringing. i was trying to summarize the OG for a friend before we started the show but couldn't remember details beyond him storing a size-changing magic staff in his ear, wrecking a peach garden, and trying to outrun someone's hand and peeing on it thinking it was a mountain then getting trapped under a rock.