PositiveThe Georgia ReviewThe seven essays in Minor Feelings deftly ho[m]e in on Hong’s intimate experiences and zoom out to broader explorations of racism. She employs the first-person modular essay, offering facts, vignettes, observations, and reflections in short, relatively disconnected sections that layer and build upon each other, making space for insight and revelations in the gaps between the sections—possibly a prose form as close to poetry as you can get. It allows Hong to refuse tidy conclusions and juxtapose ideas for surprising and immediate revelations that evoke, and distort, cover, and uncover her subject matter. In this space of discomfort, Hong carries the conversation not only beyond the binary of Black and white, but also beyond the false monolith of \'Asian America\' ... Cathy Park Hong’s honest and rigorous articulation of minor feelings is one step into an examination of what it will take to truly inhabit such a we—messy and imperfect as it will always be. She models ways to grapple with, fail, and grapple again with the difficulties of looking at racism clearly, and stumble forward as best we can. And in this way, she’s written a text that is playing a pivotal role in shaping the understanding of race in the United States today.
