RaveLIBER... it’s easy to see why [Moe Thet War] chose writing: she’s good at it ... Despite her conversational tone, Moe Thet War is decisive and deft, even when her topics are expansive ... It is clear that she has spent time and effort honing her technique; we get glimpses of this process ... It’s fitting—it’s unavoidable—that Moe Thet War’s writing reflects how her heritage informs every part of her life, including those parts heavily colored by her time abroad ... It’s exactly when Moe Thet War dwells uncomfortably in between identities that her insights are strongest ... Reading You’ve Changed is akin to conversing late into the night with an intelligent friend. There is a bounty of asides and caveats to reassure the reader of the author’s self-awareness and humor. At times, these reservations can blur the emotional point, especially when the essays run long or past their climax, dampening the overall effect. Accordingly, it’s the moments when Moe Thet War lays down her guard that her writing truly shines. When she makes a straightforward, vulnerable statement, it lands like a punch to the gut.
Cathy Park Hong
RaveThe Women\'s Review of Books... weaves together personal immigrant narrative and historical anecdote into a collection of thoughtful essays, simmering in quiet rage ... the strength of this collection lies precisely in the fact that the book avoids reading like a manifesto. Hong’s rage comes off as quiet not because it has less presence, but because it allows itself to be diverted and filtered through a variety of histories, perspectives, and future considerations ... Charting her adolescent highs and lows, Hong succeeds in conveying the simultaneous ecstasy and despair fostered by codependent female friendship. Some might question what purpose a personal story serves in a collection that is, ultimately, political if creative nonfiction. But it’s by using this intimate snapshot that Hong is able to chew on some of the prickly complexities—raised as questions in other chapters—around privilege, bitterness, and joy ... Hong carefully considers what it means to face racism when one is viewed as a mostly harmless model minority, especially when one does not read as Muslim or trans. She thus punctuates grief and resentment with unanswerable questions and honest doubt, ignoring the temptation to fall into an easy accusation with faulty categories: everyone like me, versus everyone else ... doesn’t read like an answer to, or even a declarative thesis on, Asian America. Instead, it reads like a probing new beginning. Propelled by minor feelings, itching and dissatisfied, this is a reckoning that has only just begun.
