Book Review: Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang
At age 24, you might think you’re grown, but the truth is, life’s only getting started.
At the beginning of Days of Distraction, we meet our protagonist, a young tech writer working in San Francisco’s Silicon Valley who is overworked, underappreciated, and on the brink of a full-on quarter-life crisis. Her workplace is toxic and filled with back-biters watching each other’s every move, ready to strike. She works hard, maybe harder sometimes than her peers, yet her requests for advancement and a well-earned pay raise are punted from manager to manager, each one promising, as the last, to discuss it with someone higher-up.
Her family life is sad and disjointed; her father and mother have gone through hot-and-cold phases their entire marriage, and now, her parents are on their coldest streak yet. So cold in fact, that her father fled the country in search of a new life in the family’s native China.
Despite the other two-thirds of her life being somewhat of a mess, her love life is great, or, as great as can be expected. Her longtime boyfriend, who we soon learn is named J, deeply loves her and thinks he knows her inside and out. And in many ways, they need each other to survive. When she is anxious, he is calm. When she craves control, he basks in spontaneity. He flies by the seat of his pants, and she grounds him. For many years, there has never been one without the other.
When J decides to accept a graduate assistant position in upstate New York, he asks our protagonist to join him, and she, failing to find any clear direction in her life, welcomes the change of pace and readily agrees.
But once there, living in a temporary dwelling filled with other peoples’ possessions, things start to unravel. With few job prospects, no friends, and far too much time home alone, she starts to question her place in the world. A world that, now that she is older and removed from the culturally-diverse cocoon of San Francisco, has made abundantly clear her existence as a woman of color first, and a woman second. It makes her, for the first time, wonder about her very humanity, and the structural integrity of her interracial relationship, which is getting more precarious by the minute. No longer does she feel she can share every part of herself with J, who has lived free from complications of any kind. Caught in the middle between Chinese and American, sharp tech writer and floundering freelancer, and independent woman and dependent partner, our protagonist is left to question, and ultimately solidify, her own identity. But what she gains, and, more importantly, loses, in the process might be what actually defines her.
Written in brilliant. sporadic prose, Days of Distraction is an important, slow-burning novel about the growing pains of adulthood, the significance of acceptance, and the powerful decision to choose love, in all of its many forms, in the face of adversity.
The Good: There is so, so much to love about this book. Alexandra Chang’s decision to forgo traditional chapters in favor of strategic breaks was hard to adjust to at first, but each block of text feels like a standalone snapshot of the protagonist’s life, like little one-off pieces of a puzzle that come together to form a bigger picture. I also found it refreshing that the reader isn’t subjected to a massive information dump in the first couple of chapters. Instead, we have to earn everything. even character names, by continuing the story. Chang’s voice is so strong in this, and her prose very interesting to read.
The Bad: I can’t think of anything I wish there was more of in this book. Every character we’re introduced to feels fully-fleshed out and multi-dimensional, and all questions that were posed throughout the book are answered in due course. The ending also feels complete.
Bottom Line: I loved this book, and felt myself really relating to the main character. Some of the questions she asks herself throughout the book are the same ones I asked myself at her age. I could relate to the complications of her relationship with J, especially when situations made her feel uncomfortable, and he didn’t know how to react in a helpful way. I understood her inability to stop excessively worrying about everyone around her. And, most importantly, I understood her feelings of trying to find her place as a woman of color in a world that doesn’t always readily make space for everyone who wants it. Chang is a phenomenal writer, and by the end of the book, I started to wonder if Days of Distraction isn’t at least in some ways autobiographical. If you’re wondering if you should read this book, the answer from me is a resounding yes!
Buy Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang HERE!
