Free Food for Millionaires: 3 Stars

I always love reading an author's debut novel, for Min Jin Lee, that novel is "Free Food for Millionaires." Read on for a brief summary and my overall thoughts on the novel, recommendation, and explanation for my three-star review.

Summary

Casey Han is a Korean American living in Queens with her parents, Korean immigrants who work at a dry cleaning business and her younger sister Tina who is the epitome of what a perfect Korean daughter should be in the Han's eyes. Casey, on the other hand has grown tired of trying to continuously please her parrents (particularly her father) and continuously failing.

Casey's world explodes when she is first kicked out of her house for getting into an argument with her father and refusing to apologize and second when she seeks to find comfort in the arms of her boyfriend, (who she has hidden from her parents becasue he is white) she finds him in bed with not one, but two girls. With barely any money, no place to live and a sense of bewilderment at the turn of events, Casey receives help and friendship from an unexpected source.

Throughout the novel we read as Casey goes through this crazy thing we call life. She gets a job, makes money, spends that money on high-end clothes, struggles with her family relationships, struggles with romantic relationships, struggles with professional relationships, and lastly, struggles with her faith. Basically, a whole lot of struggling.

Casey is on a constant mission to prove that she can make it, prove that she can do it on her own. Who she is trying to prove this to is unclear, maybe her parents, maybe herself?

Until the end of the novel, Casey is searching. She gets everything she "wanted" simply to realize, maybe that's not what she wants? Does she want money, and a high-powered job? Or a simple life with more sentimental purpose? We read as Casey enters the world of unkowns and tries to make sense out of it and herself.

My thoughts

First of all, I want to make it very clear that I find Min Jin Lee to be extremely talented and her representation of life as a Korean American extremely interesting. Based on Lee's personal background, moving from Seoul to New York when she was seven, and growing up there, I am assuming she pulled a lot from her personal experiences.

My reasoning for the 3-star rating has nothing to do with the talent or writing style of Min Jin Lee. I found myself mostly captivated throughout the novel although, I did feel it dragged on longer than it needed to.

I realize this is probably unfair, but I think my main reason for giving a lower star review is the characters. I found myself becoming angry with a lot of them. I was angry with Casey for not telling her boyfriend, Jay he was arrogant and rude for pushing himself on her parents after she told him not to. I was angry with Casey's mother for not sticking up for her girls. I was angry with Ted for being a prick and with Ella for letting me act like that. I realize a lot of these issues I have are issues with the culture of the time-period but I couldn't help myself from experiencing annoyance at a lot of the behavior.

I also had an issue with the ending. My response to the ending was something like, "wait, what?" The novel ended rather abruptly and left several storylines open-ended. I suppose that's life and things don't always end perfectly, you can't always wrap things up in a perfect bow but to me, it felt unfinished.

Min Jin Lee is a very talented author and I would recommend you give "Free Food for Millionaires" a read and draw your own conculusions.

Thanks for reading!

Leah Lawrence