Bakers Dozen 2013: 10

Buddha Baby by Kim Wong Keltner

Buddha Baby by Kim Wong Keltner follows Chinese-American woman, Lindsey Owyang as she tries to find a happy medium between being a typical American and still trying to connect to her Chinese heritage.  She is a second generation born in the United States.  Her family settled in the China Town area in San Fransisco and Lindsey starts to discover her family roots.

I think I read this book right before I started this blog, because a part of me thought that I posted a review for it but then I remember that I read it when I went down to Florida in March two years ago.  This was one of those books that the humor really stuck out to me.  But also the idea of how main character Lindsey was kind of embarrassed by her traditional Chinese heritage.  Also the author stressed the fact that Lindsey's boyfriend/fiance is predominately white with only a very small fraction of Chinese heritage.  But he has made a huge effort to learn customs and traditions to show respect to her parents and grandparents.  Than enter a person from her past, who is 100 percent Chinese but doesn't care at all about his Chinese heritage but Lindsey knows that her family would be more accepting of him as opposed to the one that she loves.  Through out this book Lindsey struggles with finding a happy medium in life in general.  At parts you want to beat her because she's being very whiny and other parts you sympathize with her struggle to find peace with whom she is suppose to be.

Because I was on vacation I believe I read this book on the plane ride down.  It was a very quick read.  There were parts where I laughed out loud and then there were parts where I felt the emotional turmoil of the main character.  While this book isn't quite in the humor or romance realm, I guess the only genre that it could be in would be drama.  I've never read anything like it so I don't really know how to categorize it.