Mini Reviews of Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou and The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
“She’d be split apart, never certain if the submissive and docile figure in the mirror was a reflection of who she really was, or the ghostly effect of someone telling her her entire life: this is who you are, this is all you can ever be.”
Ingrid Yang is a Ph.D. student with a problem: she’s not making any progress in her dissertation. She’s worked on it for 4 years but doesn’t have much to show for it—it seems as though everything about her subject, the late renowned Chinese poet Xiao-Wen Chou, has already been discussed, and Ingrid has hit a dead end. Then one day, as she’s sitting and wasting time in the archives room, she finds a note that will eventually lead her on a wacky and eye-opening journey into the racism inherent in academic spaces, and into the ways she has subconsciously internalized that racism.
So, Disorientation is a satire with a capital S. I feel like this is something that a few reviewers have forgotten, and it shows in their reviews. The plot and dialogue of the book are really out of pocket because they’re supposed to be. Satire uses sometimes off-color humor to not only poke fun at societal issues but to call them out and make us think critically about them. Chou does this phenomenally; she’s scathing in her portrayals. I found myself actually laughing out loud and gasping while reading, sometimes feeling a little cringe about the things I was laughing at lol. The satire in this is sharp as hell, and due to the subject matter, especially the racial aspects, I’ve been reading reviews by non-BIPOC reviewers and wondering what they in particular found funny lol. Disorientation walks a fine line and it walks it well—I feel that Chou absolutely did not write it with the white reader in mind, at least not primarily. And I loved that. This book is 400 pages long, and there was the potential for the humor and antics to become overwhelming, but Chou made it work! Although the book was jam-packed with commentary on multiple issues, it never felt like too much. Everything worked together so smoothly and organically, and I began to feel myself going through the same emotional roller coaster that Ingrid goes through in the span of the novel.
You’re probably wondering why I included the phrase “heartbreakingly deep” in the title of this review, especially when I just spent a paragraph talking about the humor in this book. It’s because alongside the humor there’s a lot of heart and a lot of pain. As a BIPOC individual, I could relate so much to the societal racism and internalized self-hatred that Ingrid experienced, and certain parts of this book made me tear up. There was a section depicting a dream of Ingrid’s in the form of a courtroom drama, and we see her tackle that internalized hate and the things that she’s repressed about her life as a Taiwanese American. The characters in the scene question her about her relationships with white men, and she has a moment where she realizes that she’s repressed a memory, and it just really hit home. There’s a lot of pain woven throughout this book, but it was never gratuitous, just always handled with care. I’d recommend this book to any BIPOC reader who attended a PWI for university; there is just so much that will resonate with that very particular and difficult experience, and I think that set of readers will greatly appreciate it.
The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
“But what are you doing with these fluids?” Lucas asked.
You know, from the synopsis, I knew that this was a book about a rare book of sex magic and the two antique book dealers trying to find it, but I just did not expect everything else that happens in this book. It was a tearjerker in two ways: in the usual sad way, and in the laugh-out-loud at its ridiculousness type of way. The Book of the Most Precious Substance was, surprisingly, damn near perfect. I was expecting some cringe moments (I mean…it’s about sex magic lol), and they were definitely there, but what I was not expecting were the heavy, heavy looks into grief. And it was a very particular form of grief because the person being grieved isn’t really physically dead—they’re suffering from a form of early-onset Alzheimer’s and dementia. So the main character is dealing not only with a different type of grief that is infinitely harder to come to terms with, but she’s grieving the loss of a life she’d built with this person. So seeing her pursue a book that can supposedly give you the thing you most want in the world, is really hard to read. I think that Gran does a wonderful job of balancing the wacky academic thriller aspects of the plot with musings on want and grief and happiness.
I’ve chosen not to say too much about the plot of this book purely because it’s a short book and I think all of its outrageousness needs to be experienced firsthand. Just wait until you find out what The Most Precious Substance is…and also what the answer to the question posed in the opening quote is. It’s…wild lol.
Kiara In The Stacks 
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