BOTM for OCTOBER is FRONT DESK

[Jemima]

So Front Desk is our October read.

For a theme of ‘books you didn’t think you’d like but you loved’ this one looks great, from its blurb. It’s awaiting me at the library, anyway.

In this thread, please add your thoughts on the book when you’ve read it. Comments in the middle are acceptable, but please, no spoilers!

Spoilers can be put in if you enclose them in ‘spoiler’ tags, replacing the ‘ with square brackets.

As always, show respect for others’ opinions, and keep the good vibes going.

Enjoy,

[Manybooks]

(view spoiler)[ Although I have for the most part very much enjoyed Kelly Yang's (semi-autobiographoical) Middle Grade immigration novel Front Desk, I am also just a wee bit conflicted regarding some of the novel's thematics and contents.

Now I do generally and for the most part very much love young Mia's first person singular narration in Front Desk. Her voice most certainly does to and for me feel and read like an authentic ten year old, although I also do at times think that Mia acts and talks perhaps just a bit too maturely and grown-up for a typical ten year old. However, that having all been said and if truth be told, young Mia is actually not really just a typical ten year old girl (for yes, Mia's experiences as a recent Chinese immigrant to the United Sates with little cash and no social safety net will have of course and sadly, unfortunately made her even at the tender age of ten much more grown-up, with more adult-type experiences and problems than what children being raised and living in more affluent families and in better areas would ever likely experience at such young ages).

But while I do definitely appreciate and applaud Mia's courage and determination in Front Desk and find her a generally delightfully relatable, entertaining and lovable main protagonist, I also and certainly must rather wonder whether Mia does for one not solve the multitude of problems that come her and her family's way (while they are managing that California motel at slave wages) just a trifle too quickly, conveniently and unproblematically and that for two, the conclusion, the ending for Front Desk is, while emotionally satisfying and making me smile, also a bit too fairy tale-like and Hollywood for my own and personal tastes and desires. And indeed, I have also found that some of the myriad of problems Mia and her family encounter tend to come across as almost a bit over-done and in one's face, almost as though author Kelly Yang has decided to have Mia and her parents experience almost everything that can go wrong for a recent Chinese immigrant family (and I for one would definitely find Front Desk more relatable and believable, a bit more realistic if the author had not just showered Mia's family with an absolute avalanche of issues and horrors and if the ending had been positive but not quite so wish-fulfillment and magical). (hide spoiler)]

[Jemima]

I'm about halfway through the book, and got a bit discouraged by the relentless bad stuff happening. It's not good when I leave a book for over a week. Is it really worth me going back to it?
(Oh, I suppose she has got a friend now)

[Manybooks]

Jemima wrote: "I'm about halfway through the book, and got a bit discouraged by the relentless bad stuff happening. It's not good when I leave a book for over a week. Is it really worth me going back to it?
(Oh, ..."

There sure are too many over the top negatives happening and the villains especially are annoyingly stereotypical.

[Jennifer]

I've only just started reading Front Desk, and I'm already having flashbacks of working the front desk. For those of you who might be questioning the craziness happening, I can tell you that I have absolutely experienced a multitude of guests like Mr. "I want you to open up every single room and I will pick my own," as well as an owner who shows up without warning and tries to micromanage everything. The descriptions are not exaggerations. Nor are the interactions. At least as of the end of Chapter 7.

[Harley]

Jemima wrote: "I'm about halfway through the book, and got a bit discouraged by the relentless bad stuff happening. It's not good when I leave a book for over a week. Is it really worth me going back to it?
(Oh, ..."
Not worth going back to. I quit after chapter ten.

[Manybooks]

But whatever readers may think Front Desk is not a novel that should be challenged and banned as it has been in some school districts after idiot parents complained.

[Jennifer]

Harley wrote: "Harley wrote: "Not worth going back to. I quit after chapter ten."

This surprises me. I'm really enjoying the book. I had to force myself to put it down at 2am so I could go to bed last night, and I'm looking forward to finishing it today. What made you quit the book?

And Manybooks is correct, this book absolutely does not need to be banned, though I am pretty confident I know why it's being challenged...

[Manybooks]

Yeah, me too, racial issues and that Mia's mother is shown as someone toxic and to disrespect

[Jennifer]

Oh, man. Chapter 55 hit really close to home for me; that was my life 4 months ago, when the owner of the hotel told my husband and I that he was leasing the hotel out to a management group and they would be bringing in their own people to manage the hotel. All of a sudden, my husband and I suddenly had 1 month to not only find a new job but also a new place to live. I could feel the stress Mia's family was under at that pronouncement.

[Jennifer]

Manybooks wrote: "Yeah, me too, racial issues and that Mia's mother is shown as someone toxic and to disrespect"

I don't know that I see Mia's mother as someone to disrespect. Toxic, yes, because of her treatment of Mia's attempts to write. But, I don't really see the disrespect. It's clear that she loves her daughter, and wants the best for her; she is just suffering from having been beaten down in both her home country of China and her adopted country of the USA. When you've been beaten down that much, it's hard to hope, to try, to go outside of the oath that you know will be successful. It's not good, by any stretch, but I will also give her the benefit of the doubt because of (view spoiler)[ the apology she gives after Mia wins the pizza (hide spoiler)]

[Jennifer]

Jemima wrote: "I'm about halfway through the book, and got a bit discouraged by the relentless bad stuff happening. It's not good when I leave a book for over a week. Is it really worth me going back to?"

I would say it is. Having finished (my review/commentary is incoming), I would say that while there is a lot of bad things that happen, they are realistic. From my own experience working front desk/managing a motel, I can honestly say that I have experienced nearly every single situation Mia has (save for when Mia's mother (view spoiler)[ is attacked and beaten up (hide spoiler)], though there were several times when I had to call the police).

While the villains are stereotypical, the ones related to the motel experience are accurate. While I can't speak to the immigrant situations from experience, based on conversations I have had and things I have witnessed, they are also realistic, unfortunately.

As for the negative tone of the book so far, without revealing spoilers, things do start to get better for Mia and her parents in the second half. I would recommend picking it back up and finishing it - though it seems from the comments here that I am in the minority with this opinion.

[Jennifer]

(view spoiler)[Mia is a ten-year-old Chinese immigrant. She had immigrated to California from China 2 years earlier with her parents, who were hoping for a better life. Unfortunately, the United States in the 1990s was not exactly welcoming to Chinese immigrants, and many struggled. Mia and her parents were no different. After gaining and losing several jobs and facing homelessness again, Mia's parents take a job managing a motel. Unfortunately, the motel owner - who is Taiwanese, not Chinese, as he is quick to point out - is not only overtly racist, he is also exploitive and seems almost happy to point out to Mia's parents that they could be replaced immediately when they question his actions.

But Mia and her parents try to make the best of it. Mia works the front desk when at the motel, quickly learning the ropes and consistently trying to find ways to help the guests and her family. She also becomes friends with the weeklies at the motel - those guests who live at the motel and pay weekly - and they quickly become part of her growing family.

At school, though, Mia struggles. She can't tell the other students - most of whom are white - that she lives in a motel. She struggles in English, though she loves writing, and she also has disagreements with her mother who thinks she should focus on math and forget about writing because "she'll never be able to write as well as the white kids" for whom English is their native language. (hide spoiler)]

(I put my blurb about the book behind a spoiler tag, in case anyone hasn't read it yet and doesn't want anything revealed. While it does give a little more info than the book's blurb, it doesn't give away much past the opening chapters of the book.)

Most of the book is a slice-of-life look at running a hotel and Mia's struggle to integrate with the other students at school. Though it may seem to some that too much goes wrong at the motel in too short a period of time, I can say from experience that this depiction is incredibly realistic. While reading it, I was having flashbacks to my own experience managing a motel and running the front desk. The news Mia and her family get in chapter 55, in particular, hit hard on the feels for me, because my husband and I went through that same situation. We didn't use the same solution that Mia and her family did, and I definitely loved the solution they came up with.

Throughout the story were the letters that Mia wrote, each for a different situation. These were an added touch, helping to bring the reader back to the days of the early and mid-90s, before email was ubiquitous and text messaging was still a dream. Her struggle to put word to paper, to make sure she was using the right words and tenses, was an added dimension to the story that I didn't expect but definitely appreciated. The author's note at the end, where she discussed her own experiences was also incredibly moving, and I loved learning that much of the book's scenarios were pulled from her own experiences, while also wanting to give a hug to the child that had to experience that struggle.

I had the opportunity to listen to the audiobook, narrated by Sunny Lu, and I highly recommend it. Lu did a wonderful job with the narration, injecting just the right amount of emotion and tension into the performance. I had to force myself to stop listening so I could go to bed; had I not, I would have listened right through to the end and not getting any sleep. While I would have enjoyed the story, work the nest day would not have been fun. Lol.

So, long review short, I definitely recommend this book. For younger readers, I would recommend a parent read with them, as there are some tough situations that they may need/want to talk about. But overall, this is a story of hope for an immigrant family who is struggling to make a better life for themselves.

[Harley]

Jennifer wrote: "Harley wrote: "Harley wrote: "Not worth going back to. I quit after chapter ten."

This surprises me. I'm really enjoying the book. I had to force myself to put it down at 2am so I could go to bed ..."

Read messages 2, 3, & 4. They express the negatives much better than I can.

[Jennifer]

Harley wrote: "Read messages 2, 3, & 4. They express the negatives much better than I can."

I guess the discrepancy is that I don't see what happens as over-the-top. The issues with running the motel were incredibly realistic to me, and while I can't speak to personal knowledge of the immigrant experience, what I have heard from friends who have lived it, it's pretty realistic, too. I can agree that the ending is a bit Hollywood, and not necessarily realistic, but I also don't think it fits with the rest of the book. I think having Mia (view spoiler)[win the essay contest and the Vermont hotel (hide spoiler)] would have been too over-the-top, but crowd-funding the money to purchase a motel doesn't seem that crazy to me.

[Jemima]

Thanks for you comments on my 'stuck' message.

I was at Ch 33 when I wrote that, and your comments helped me go back to it. I'm glad I did - that was definitely the point at which things started to go better, although there were still plenty of anxious moments.

I don't see the mother as toxic - stressed, over-anxious, exhausted, guilt-ridden, fearful for her daughter in this new world whose culture she (Mum) doesn't really understand. And later it seems very reasonable that having struggled to get her own education, Mum is eager to help Mia - and she can't help her in English!

One line really resonated with me, when Mia said something about past tenses - they only have present tense in China (I paraphrase).

I never knew that! That explains so much about people I know who speak English 'poorly' because everything is in the present tense with them. If you have grown up in a language where everything is present tense, then it must be like someone telling me to breathe through gills when underwater - a totally alien (and inappropriate) concept.

Yang has drawn on her own experiences to write a really interesting story. I'm glad I finished it.

[Manybooks]

Jemima wrote: "Thanks for you comments on my 'stuck' message.

I was at Ch 33 when I wrote that, and your comments helped me go back to it. I'm glad I did - that was definitely the point at which things started t..."

And in the Indo-European languages, in English, German, French, Spanish, Russian etc., you do not just have one past tense but multiple ones for different contexts.

[Manybooks]

Jemima wrote: "Thanks for you comments on my 'stuck' message.

I was at Ch 33 when I wrote that, and your comments helped me go back to it. I'm glad I did - that was definitely the point at which things started t..."

I still think that the mother denigrating Mia wanting to do do well in English and not caring about math is totally toxic, from my own personal experience perhaps but I stand by this.

[Manybooks]

It is one thing for parents to not like what their children are reading, but it is quite another thing that in particular in many of the more conservative, republican US states, parents have so much power that books are routinely being banned because often just one parent has been complaining.

And yes, Front Desk was not allowed to be used as a read aloud in Pleinedge school district, New York State, because some idiot parent complained about the fact that a racist white cop falsely accuses a black man of theft.

But also, if some school administrator were to tell me I could not use a certain book in class, I would simply still do so and yes gladly be fired and/or even arrested for practicing my democratic rights.

[Jemima]

Manybooks wrote: "Jemima wrote: "Thanks for you comments on my 'stuck' message....
denigrating English and not caring about math

I thought she assumed that Mia would not be 'good enough' at English as it wasn't her mother tongue, whereas Chinese were known to be good at maths. From Ma's perspective, she was encouraging Mia to excellence in something she 'should' be good at. A bit like being told not to try engineering because it was a boy's subject (she said, feelingly).

[Jemima]

Manybooks wrote: "It is one thing for parents to not like what their children are reading, but it is quite another thing that in particular in many of the more conservative, republican US states, parents have so muc..."

Oh, I so agree. It is one of the things we find jaw-dropping from the European perspective, that so many 'Christian' folks in the US have really fascist views about what is allowed. Not that there isn't a rise in racism in Europolitics at present...

[Manybooks]

From what I remember Mia's mother was for one not being at all encouraging and for two also perpetuating the stereotype that if you are of Chinese background you must be good at math. And I mean, Mia is ten years old and while she might not perhaps lose her accent when speaking English, it is clearly being shown in Front Desk that she has a real talent for writing (including English).

[Jemima]

Manybooks wrote: "From what I remember Mia's mother was for one not being at all encouraging and for two also perpetuating the stereotype that if you are of Chinese background you must be good at math. And I mean, M..."

Oh I definitely agree - that was how she was behaving. Mum was stuck in her own frame of reference for her child, and with so much work and stress, perhaps it's understandable she didn't see Mia as she was. I think she unbent towards the end, though.

[Jennifer]

Manybooks wrote: "From what I remember Mia's mother was for one not being at all encouraging and for two also perpetuating the stereotype that if you are of Chinese background you must be good at math. And I mean, M..."

I didn't see it as her mother perpetuating the stereotype so much as her mother had been really good at math (learning at the same time as her brother) and not good at English. At the same time, she was also operating under the belief that Mia would never be as good at English as a native speaker, so she was trying to steer Mia toward something that wouldn't be affected by the language barrier.
Despite her comments early on, she does change later on in the book, and even apologizes for some of the more hurtful things she said, which I think is important. We have to remember that parents are operating within their own framework and belief system, which affects their behavior just as much, and the important thing here is that her mother DID see that what she was doing and how she was behaving was wrong, and she did apologize to Mia for it.
But, you have to keep reading to the end to reach that outcome.

[Justine]

Moving to a new country is never easy, even more so if you don't speak the language. In this account, we also see the struggles of fellow immigrants, their culture shocks and gaffs and the traps they fall into. There is also a strong theme on racial prejudice she experiences and witnesses. This book has several themes that can be explored in a classroom. Mia's approach to seeking justice on behalf of her friends is worthy of discussion.

This is part of what I had written in my review when I read this book a couple of years ago. I remember, like Jemima, finding it hard as so many bad things were happening.