My Year Abroad

Reviews

Praise for My Year Abroad: 

“A wild tale that moves coolly between satire and thriller . . . . Lee tells a story of what it means to be plucked from darkness into the light of recognition, and in doing so, explores the fundamental human desires to be seen and to love.” —The Washington Post

“A wild-ride picaresque, wisecracking, funny, ambitious, full of sex and danger.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Exuberant . . . Lee's writing style, as usual, is alive with wit and satiric social commentary… boisterous and fun.” —NPR, Fresh Air

“My Year Abroad is an extraordinary book, acrobatic on the level of the sentence, symphonic across its many movements—and this is a book that moves. . . . My Year Abroad is a wild ride—a caper, a romance, a bildungsroman, and something of a satire of how to get filthy rich in rising Asia.” —Vogue.com

“A moving saga about family and loss, embedded in what reads like a romp. Ultimately, Lee has succeeded in creating that rare type of novel, one which is both sneakily profound and a blast to read.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Dickens meets globalism in this new work from one of our most celebrated writers.” —OprahDaily.com

“Chang-rae Lee’s new global adventure is his most essentially American novel. . . . Long preoccupied with the ways identity holds people back, Lee now seems to want to write about how those things open us up, for good or ill.” —Los Angeles Times 

“Chang-rae Lee's propulsive dark comedy re-creates a Dantean descent into a globalism teetering on disaster. . . . a pulse-raising page-turner, with dazzling moments and a Saunders-esque riot of marketing gimmicks and junk food.” —Star Tribune

“Reading My Year Abroad feels like watching a master juggler at work; Lee, the author of five other novels, highlights his accomplished literary skills within this kaleidoscopic, dynamic narrative.” —Electric Literature

“A syncopated surprise, with an ending that will be sure to leave you texting all your friends.” —NYMag.com/Vulture

“Chang-rae Lee’s latest novel is about much more than a wild adventure abroad. . . . It’s an energetic but tender exploration of cultural immersion, ambition and pleasure that takes many unexpected turns.” —Time.com

“Equal parts insightful, suspenseful and darkly funny.” —PureWow

“Tinged with dark humor and rich with commentary.” —Fortune.com

“A riotously funny, bizarre, brilliant novel.” —Medium

“Chang-rae Lee's electric new novel has the kind of kinetic energy that makes reading it feel like a full body experience, leaving you wondering and in awe of where exactly it will take you next. . . . a virtuosic, wildly original book—one that cements Lee's status as one of the most exciting writers working today.” —Refinery29
 
“By turns dark, humorous and almost sneakily insightful.” —GoodHousekeeping.com

“My Year Abroad is a strange and stirring amalgam: a tender novel about business, ambition, and appetite. With great generosity, and in a searching, democratic spirit, Chang-rae Lee describes the enticements, mirages, pleasures and catastrophes that attend not only the pursuit of wealth but the pursuit of happiness in all its forms, romantic, domestic, and, yes, gustatory.  In Pong Lou, he has given American literature a character who deserves his place among other tragic dreamers, from Gatsby to J.R.” —Jeffrey Eugenides, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Middlesex

"For a quarter century now, from book to book, [Chang-rae Lee] has explored the ever-urgent themes of alienation, assimilation, and identity with unmatched assurance and acuity. He has redefined not only what it means to be American, but the fabric of the Great American Novel itself." —Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Interpreter of Maladies

“My Year Abroad is a novel of astonishing wit and wisdom and scope, a globe-spanning story about those powerful first youthful encounters with love and evil and heartbreak and beauty. It’s also, by the way, enormously fun to read. Chang-rae Lee is, clearly, a master.” —Nathan Hill, The New York Times–bestselling author of The Nix

“[A] wildly inventive comic novel . . . Chang-rae Lee has written a surprising, spirited, keenly observed novel, full of the crazy and the profound.” —BookPage, (starred review)

“Lee is supreme, and this high-velocity, shocking, and wise novel, avidly promoted, is emitting an irresistible magnetic force.” —Booklist, (starred review)

“Lee is masterful from passage to passage. . . . A sage study in how readily we’re undone by our appetites." —Kirkus Reviews

"This literary whirlwind has Lee running on all cylinders." —Publishers Weekly, (starred review) Expand reviews