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Girls for Breakfast

Girls for Breakfast

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Reviews

NYPL Books for the Teen Age selection

Booksense Pick

Readings Rants Top Ten Books for Teens

"GIRLS FOR BREAKFAST performs the neat trick of taking the misery of adolescence and transforming it into fiction that is funny, engrossing, and perceptive. David Yoo is a talented writer with lots to say about sex, ethnicity, and whitebread suburbia."

– Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children and Election

Funny, dark, and subversive. Beware: you’ll never be able to look at a guy the same way after you read this book.

– Rachel Cohn, author of Nick and Norahs Infinite Playlist
and You Know Where To Find Me

"Deeply funny and painfully realistic, David Yoo’s novel does what Melvin Burgess’s flashy Doing It fell short of—gives readers the true inner life of an adolescent boy, warts and all. It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t at all comfortable, but man oh man, is it compulsively readable. A+++!"

                                                                                               – Reading Rants

"Very funny and bravely rendered."

– The Seattle Times

"As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Nick's humor is a cover for something darker. His self-absorption grows into intense alienation during his teenage years...Nick starts getting twisted up in the paradoxes of Asian American identity. Nick's behavior can be creepy, but his narrative is always bracingly honest..."Girls for Breakfast" recognizes that teenagerhood is so awkward, and takes itself so seriously, that it's instinctively funny. Parents like to tell despairing teenagers that someday they'll look back and laugh at their high school social disasters; this book might just prove it."

– Austin American Statesman

"This often hilarious first novel begins on the morning before narrator Nick Park's high school graduation, when he skips out on rehearsal to reflect on his frequently disastrous life growing up in the only Asian family in Renfield, Connecticut...Nick is a complicated character, and readers will alternately sympathize with him for his outsider status, and occasionally dislike him for his actions...[Readers] will find themselves laughing at many of his scrapes, and cheer when he marks the 'end of the selfish Nick' and begins to care less about what others think."

– Publishers Weekly

"But though it's a blast from the past, there is also something heartwarmingly universal about Girls For Breakfast. A coming-of-age story reminiscent of Nick Hornby's About a Boy, J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Sue Townshend's hilarious Adrian Mole diaries with a touch of David Sedaris, Girls... is the first book that I've ever reviewed (for Koream) that had me repeatedly bursting out with laughter in public. And in keeping with the novel's irreverent tone: I laughed so hard soda came out of my nose...Yoo limns the painful contours of ethnic self-hatred as the teenage Nick becomes older ... Girls... is a sheer delight, a hilarious novel from start to finish that has enough substance, sophistication and sarcasm to evoke howls of laughter from the average KA adult reader."

– Koream Journal

"Yoo's marvelous debut novel offers a painful, poignant look at the misery of adolescence as experienced by Nick Park, a Korean-American boy who is the only Asian in his upscale Connecticut school. His strict, aloof parents want a tennis pro and a straight A student; he just wants to be popular and goes through all sorts of hilarious, painful exertions (including pretending to be a kung fu master and teaching his classmates a bunch of made-up moves) to win their approval-to no avail...The payoff for Nick may arrive very late in the day-but readers will cheer as the blinders fall away and he has his epiphany on graduation day. Yoo's book is a revelation in its examination of the torture of middle school, of suburbia and what it's like to be different."

– The Buffalo News

"The raft of books exploring the issues confronting Asian-American youths are largely one-dimensional, preachy or politically correct to the point of castration. Maybe it's because this is David Yoo's first novel that he feels unconstrained by convention or cliche. Whatever the reason, he has produced a multi-faceted and subtly layered story in which the reader is as tantalizingly confused and irritated in turns as its teenage protagonist. Yoo's skill is to manipulate the readers' emotions and reactions to Nick in as intricate manner that reflects the complexity of the various changes he goes through. Like any teenager Nick has unbelievable highs and unbearable lows. You can take that journey with him and hope that Yoo provides a return ticket. It will be good value."

– The Asian Review of Books

"I'd descended into social Siberia sometime during the first week of middle school and had no idea how I'd gotten there. This is, apparently, the question of my life." Nick Park, a Korean American, describes himself as "the only non-Anglo-Saxon student in suburban Connecticut," and blames his Korean looks for his lack of popularity and girlfriends. Readers, however, will understand that his problem is due to his desperate bids for attention. This edgy and wickedly hilarious tale, filled with references to '80s pop culture, begins on Nick's high school graduation day as he retraces his thoughts and experiences from elementary school to the present. Through Nick's perception of his mother (a woman who is more adept at cursing in Korean than cooking) to his perception of what makes the popular kids popular (hot girls, varsity letter jackets, and definitely NOT church), readers get to know a confused and lonely young man who is trying to know himself by any means necessary. Nick thinks a lot about girls, sex, and nude women; while the text is sometimes vulgar, it is actually quite true to the high school experience.

– School Library Journal

"Yoo doesn't pull any punches when he describes the adolescent agony of his main character, Nick Park, who resents being Korean-American in an all-white high school, and tries through various way --pretending to be a kung fu master, hiding his mom's ethnic dishes--to fit in."

– Sunday Daily Camera

Nick's stories are as funny as they are cringe-worthy, and everyone will recognize themselves in some of his embarrassing escapades...It all comes to a head at the Prom and takes hours of reflection the next day for Nick to sort through what will happen next. Readers will only receive hints until the end of the book, but they will be too busy enjoying Nick's funny and ironic narration about himself."

www.teenreads.com

"It's not always pretty--in fact, it's often not pretty--and it can be quite uncomfortable, but David Yoo has this brilliant realness to his writing."

Popgurls.com

"It's his hilarious take on adolescent Asian-American male lust/angst/paranoia, sort of in the tradition of Judy Blume and Nick Hornby...The book is written for teens, but I thoroughly enjoyed it...It's funny and true, littered with delightful vulgarity and pop culture references, along with some sly insight on ethnicity."

www.angryasianman.com

"Following a public graduation-eve gaffe, seventeen-year-old Nick Park reflects on his lifelong obsession with girls. The cover - a Wheaties cereal box knockoff - will attract teens seeking a slapstick romance, but this novel demonstrates more depth as Nick deals with his Asian heritage, a theme with few offerings in current young adult literature."

– VOYA

"Although the tale takes place in the 80's and the scenes are orchestrated to the music, style and slang of the times, it could just have easily taken place in present day, and nothing in the story will alienate today's adolescents...Language and content may be shocking, but it's all authentic, as is the central conflict of identity. We need more good books for boys, and this coming of age story tells it like it is, in all of it's funny, embarrassing, and confusing moments, without being gratuitous or titillating. Recommended for larger collections."

Hip Librarians Book Blog

 "Sex-crazed Nick can be disrespectful of girls and mean to his

clueless parents, and thus not always a likeable character, but Nick's lust is often a lust for connectedness. He talks locker-room talk but doesn't even have any locker room pals. The year-by-year growing up of Nick's Renfield class is well detailed and will resonate with high schoolers. Buy for ages 15+ because it's so funny. YA/Mature, Recommended."

– Westchester Library System

Girls for Breakfast – Synopsis
On his graduation day from Renfield High, Nick Park is determined to figure out if his heritage is the cause of his abysmal luck with girls.

Beginning the novel as an unreliable and unknowingly comic narrator, Nick Park struggles to fit into Renfield--an alarmingly homogeneous Connecticut suburb as he grapples with his own ambivalence towards his ethnicity and his neurotic love for girls. Girls For Breakfast is a uniquely funny, unforgettable meditation on love and race, family and friendship,acceptance and isolation.

Nick Park is an ironic, sharp-edged commentator on the world of masculine angst, relationships and sex, and his commentary brings to the mix an intelligent, candid and irreverent inquiry into what it means to be an "ethnic" teenage boy in the white suburbs of late twentieth century America.

From killing a hamster in 3rd grade in front of his entire class, to contracting illicit photos of his 8th grade crush, to repeatedly lying about being a 4th degree black belt, Nick Park is a character that you will remember long after you close this book.

Product Details
ISBN: 0-385-73192-2 (hardcover) 0-440-23883-8 (paperback) Publisher: Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers Subject: Boys / Men Subject: Children's 12-Up - Fiction - General Subject: Humorous Stories Subject: Social Situations - Adolescence Publication Date: May 2005 Binding: Hardcover Language: English Pages: 304

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