Disorientation

A Novel

By: Elaine Hsieh Chou

Narrated by: Jennifer Kim

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE SELECTION * A MALALA BOOK CLUB PICK * AN INDIE NEXT PICK * A FAVORITE BOOK OF 2022 BY NPR AND BOOK RIOT * A MUST-READ MARCH 2022 BOOK BY TIME, VANITY FAIR, EW AND THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS * A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2022 BY GOODREADS, NYLON, BUZZFEED AND MORE

A Taiwanese American woman’s coming-of-consciousness ignites eye-opening revelations and chaos on a college campus in this outrageously hilarious and startlingly tender debut novel.

Twenty-nine-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang is desperate to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and never read about “Chinese-y” things again. But after years of grueling research, all she has to show for her efforts are a junk food addiction and stomach pain. When she accidentally stumbles upon a curious note in the Chou archives one afternoon, it looks like her ticket out of academic hell.

But Ingrid’s in much deeper than she thinks. Her clumsy exploits to unravel the note’s message lead to an explosive discovery, upending her entire life and the lives of those around her. What follows is a roller coaster of mishaps and misadventures, from book burnings and OTC drug hallucinations, to hot-button protests and Yellow Peril 2.0 propaganda. As the events Ingrid instigated keep spiraling, she’ll have to confront her sticky relationship to white men and white institutions—and, most of all, herself.

A blistering send-up of privilege and power, and a profound reckoning of individual complicity and unspoken rage, in Disorientation Elaine Hsieh Chou asks who gets to tell our stories—and how the story changes when we finally tell it ourselves.

©2022 Elaine Hsieh Chou (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"“[F]unny and insightful, with plenty to say about art, identity, Orientalism and the politics of academia.” —New York Times Book Review

“The hyperactive satire is so consistently funny it almost makes the reader forget about the serious societal issues that undergird the humor . . . Disorientation does what great comedies and satires are supposed to do: make you laugh while forcing you to ponder the uncomfortable implications of every punchline.” —The Washington Post

“[A] literary satire that takes a hilarious and refreshingly honest look at the power dynamics of college campuses . . . This one will have you rolling over with laughter and texting your college group chat.” —NPR, Books We Love 2022

A great listen

Wonderful story, excellently voice acting performance by the narrator. I only wish the pronunciation of the Mandarin dialogue had been more accurate.

Felt conflicted about this one

I see the message that is trying to be put across but I found that at a lot of moments it was poorly done and that the main character seemed so sheltered that once something inconvenienced her she literally lost her shit and let the people around her influence her actions and thoughts. She did make some good points but most of the time her reasoning was in the wrong place.
I personally didn’t find this book funny at all. I chuckled a few times but a lot of the humor wasn’t funny it was hypocritical.
I feel I was more disappointed than anything I went into this book expecting a funny light story I was super excited but I got the opposite.

I do feel that this book hits on a lot of good topics and things that need to be talked about but the delivery was not there for me.

Exceptional

Wow. I will be thinking about this book for a long time. I wish I could read it again for the first time. This was a wonderful read. Thank you to the author and narrator. Truly exceptional.

Captures the pressure of Doing Doctoral Work

This was a good book but not a great book for me. The good - the performance was excellent. The plot gave me a lot of things to think about. There were lots of things I hadn’t considered because they are not part of my experience. The complexity of identities and relationships and perception grounded in personal experience is really compelling. The course of events is in many ways probably exactly how things might have gone in “real life”.

The biggest strength of the book is in capturing the PhD experience. The comparison with others, the role of the faculty, the power dynamics and the self-doubt — this book does that better than any novel I’ve read.

Overall, I learned a lot, laughed a little (there are genuinely funny moments in this book that Al feel true to the characters), and I am left with a lot to think about.

There were some aspects I struggled with. While generally the evolution of the characters made sense, I didn’t understand every character’s shift in every moment. Or maybe I didn’t understand their starting point and that wasn’t made clear through their changes in the text.

Then there were some minor aspects that just would not have happened the way they were described. A little more research on student affairs in higher education could resolve those. A faculty member with no student affairs experience would not become a Dean of Students. It would be a pay cut for one thing and he would lack qualifications. Also “room and board” means housing and meal plan so there wasn’t a need to add “and meal plan”. Again, these are pretty minor in the scheme of the story.

Worth a read, but won’t be for everyone.

Thought provoking and engaging listen

I really enjoyed hearing so many different perspectives on the subjects of appropriation, racism, the complexities of so many cultures colliding and the expectations of society within all of it.

Interesting take on modern campus culture wars

Killer concept for a novel gives the author a chance to riff thought-provokingly and entertainingly on American culture and higher education. It’s a little bleak, but so are those two things these days, and the narrative is often funny and touching, the latter almost despite itself.

Best Book I've Read This Year

This book should be required reading. Encapsulates so much about American society and academia. OMG! Insightful and funny!

Hyper-Deadpan Narration Takes Getting Used To

Love this book. Admittedly, I love Asian/Asian-American literature and film (as a non-Asian WOC). But I actually chose this book because I noted a critical review comparing it to Paul Beatty's The Sellout, and that comparison was right on the money. Just as with Sellout and Beatty's first book, The White Boy Shuffle, Disorientation is sharp, satirical, and sometimes raucously hilarious with interesting characters and a plot that twists, turns, and is ceaselessly revelatory.

I came to enjoy Jennifer Kim's narration, but it took nearly half the novel to acclimate to it. I think I would have started LOL a lot sooner in the journey if there had been more pointed inflections (and because of this, I plan to read it again by sight). But ultimately, the straight narration works out for the book, particularly once it's clear that much of the story is farcical. Kim's near-emotionless interpretation makes the absurd even funnier, and eventually I realized that was likely the plan all along.

There is a mild didacticism to parts of the text, one I didn't mind (and in fact appreciated), but I can think of a few people I know who would indeed mind. So that's the only disclaimer: that in some pockets of this novel, it veers into what the uninitiated (+ the probably ignorant) may call "woke". But wherever you fall on the spectrum when it comes to 'culture wars', I can assure you that you won't ever be bored by this story.

Learned a lot about cooptation of Asian peoples and culture but tedious in places

The story led me along but would have benefited from editing in places. I did appreciate the slow awakening of the Taiwanese main character to consciousness of how the dominant (white) culture shaped her behavior and choices. Ultimately, she went with her new awareness and an open heart, with many complex questions unresolved. I also liked that not everything got wrapped up happily at the end.

it's worth a read.

it's a great listen. I laughed put Loud a lot. it's also really sad