now reading: Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong

This semester I'm taking Forms of Literature, which is mandatory for the English major I've decided I no longer want. In this instance the forms of literature we're studying are novels about people who have complicated relationships with their mothers. As much as these books might be individually interesting, combined they make the class an emotionally exhausting onslaught of new difficult topics every month.

Our current book is Which Side Are You On, a 170 page story about an Asian-American man named Reed who returns home from college to announce to his parents that he's dropping out of Columbia to become an "activist". His mother, who was an organizer in the 80s, views his antics mostly as juvenile posturing rather than anything meaningful. Meanwhile Reed feels frustrated that his elders look down at his aspirations despite once sharing those goals.

Unfortunately this otherwise promising story suffers from a sort of Riverdale-esque dialogue bogged down by activist vocabulary words. This is done intentionally to underscore the ways in which Reed is more talk than action, making each conversation with others unbearably tedious. It also has the effect of making the book unbearably tedious.

"We were experimenting with noncapitalist hangouts, where instead of going out to buy something, I helped them hand a shelf and they cut my hair."

"No wonder it looks like shit," said Mom, feeling a lock between her fingers. "I hope the shelf she hung isn't this crooked."

I blushed. "God forbid the dead cells on my head don't conform to normative beauty standards."

Every. Single. Conversation. Sounds like this. And listen... I get it. I dated people in "activist" spaces during the time period this book was set. I have met the type of person that's being criticized. But Reed is a caricature of this person, exaggerated to the point where every time he speaks you're immediately reminded that this is a work of fiction and the author is trying to drive a very specific point home.

It's both too much and not enough. Reed exists for no other reason than to spout off well-intentioned buzzwords that irritate those around him. he doesn't order from menus at restaurants. A brief conversation with a yoga instructor is interrupted. Literally every conversation not about activism is cut short, prevented, or fades to black once the topic shifts. This is a novella not because the author only needed 170 pages to tell the story, but because it features the bare minimum needed to string a plot together.

At this point I have to add that I'm about halfway through my reading. Getting this far has been a chore, and I'm dreading the class discussion so much that I'm writing this post instead of working on an analysis due by midnight.For all of my complaining, I do think Which Side Are You On is an interesting depiction of the gap between current activist hopefuls versus those who were involved in movements decades prior. My opinion is also biased because this is something I'm being forced to read rather than a book I picked out myself.

I just really wish it would give me more to like about it.