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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/298825.Happy_Birthday_or_Whatever_Track_Suits_Kim_Chee_and_Other_Family_Disasters?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1173502369m/298825.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/298825.Happy_Birthday_or_Whatever_Track_Suits_Kim_Chee_and_Other_Family_Disasters?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/172348.Annie_Choi">Annie Choi</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/12426858?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>I love Annie Choi's blog; love it. Love her funny voice and unique perspective on things. So I thought I'd really, really love this memoir. <br/> <br/>Well...it was okay, I guess. Good for a few laughs here and there. There was just too much emotional distance for me to really connect with it, though. Like, this big major thing happens in her family, and from reading the back of the book, it's a major turning point. Up till that point, Choi has mostly just made fun of her mom (and sometimes her fat brother too, who doesn't have much to do in this memoir except show up now and again and be fat). So when the Big Major Turning Point finally happened, I thought, Oh, goody, now maybe the story will deepen and I'll see how Annie Choi actually feels about things. <br/> <br/>Yeah, that didn't happen. The BMTP was just a blip in one of the essays, hardly to be mentioned again, and the rest of the story bumped along in its lightweight, yeah-okay-it's-funny-I-guess, making-fun-of-her-Korean-family, ha-ha-her-mom-can't-speak-good-English kind of way. <br/> <br/>Speaking of which, is it possible for someone to be racist against her own family?? Okay, okay, I won't go that far. But Choi certainly tries to get the most comedic mileage possible out of her mom's brand of Korean-influenced English. It actually made me kind of uncomfortable. <br/> <br/>Also, this is just a personal peeve, but I hated the editing in this book. Not just the story structure (cuz I do wish Choi's editor had wrung a little more emotion out of her as a writer and storyteller), but the copyediting. Sooo many words were misspelled--and repeatedly, so they weren't just typos. Come on, Harper Paperbacks! You're a big, major publisher! I know you can do better than this! <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/346163?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>