Book thoughts: Undertow by Brooklyn Ray
Sep. 15th, 2018 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkUndertow by Brooklyn Ray
(Trigger warning: this book heavily implies a character is physically abused by their parent)
Full confession: I've read only about 15% of this book so far, but what I read made me so angry I had to stop and blog about it.
I had a bad time with the first book in this series, Darkling. In general, this author has serious issues with portraying PoC and Asian American characters in particular, even though they frame themselves as kind of the "champion" of the queer community on Twitter (really, mostly a champion for white queer Twitter + their few QPoC friends).
In Darkling, Tyler Li—the only Asian American character—is the antagonist. He is portrayed as the least tolerant, most bigoted person even though he is literally surrounded by white characters. He is also pitted against the book's only other PoC character. Because Ryder is the protagonist in Darkling, the reader is essentially positioned to hate Tyler Li and think he's a massive jerk.
In the beginning of Undertow, it's heavily implied that Tyler is a jerk because his father is physically abusive toward him.
Let's unpack this.
Abuse within Asian American families is a sensitive issue. It happens, and it's often swept under the rug as a normal "tiger parents" thing. It's on the spectrum of Asian Americans who have difficulties with their parents. I'm not against the portrayal of Asian American characters with difficult or even abusive parents.
But for a white person to insert themselves into this intracommunity issue is swerving out of their lane to the extreme.
And it's not just that in Undertow; I'm sensitive to portrayals of abusive relationships in fiction, and the whole thing is treated in a way that felt incredibly disrespectful to me: Ryder (the protagonist of the previous book, remember) essentially mocks Tyler for being abused by his father.
What. The. Actual. F**k.
Author—how dare you? How dare you make the Asian American character the most intolerant and reviled one out of your majority white cast, how dare you decide that his jerkishness is due to him being a survivor of parental physical abuse, and how dare you then have the previous (white) protagonist mock him for it?
What is wrong with you??
How dare you call yourself an ally to POC???
(Trigger warning: this book heavily implies a character is physically abused by their parent)
Full confession: I've read only about 15% of this book so far, but what I read made me so angry I had to stop and blog about it.
I had a bad time with the first book in this series, Darkling. In general, this author has serious issues with portraying PoC and Asian American characters in particular, even though they frame themselves as kind of the "champion" of the queer community on Twitter (really, mostly a champion for white queer Twitter + their few QPoC friends).
In Darkling, Tyler Li—the only Asian American character—is the antagonist. He is portrayed as the least tolerant, most bigoted person even though he is literally surrounded by white characters. He is also pitted against the book's only other PoC character. Because Ryder is the protagonist in Darkling, the reader is essentially positioned to hate Tyler Li and think he's a massive jerk.
In the beginning of Undertow, it's heavily implied that Tyler is a jerk because his father is physically abusive toward him.
Let's unpack this.
Abuse within Asian American families is a sensitive issue. It happens, and it's often swept under the rug as a normal "tiger parents" thing. It's on the spectrum of Asian Americans who have difficulties with their parents. I'm not against the portrayal of Asian American characters with difficult or even abusive parents.
But for a white person to insert themselves into this intracommunity issue is swerving out of their lane to the extreme.
And it's not just that in Undertow; I'm sensitive to portrayals of abusive relationships in fiction, and the whole thing is treated in a way that felt incredibly disrespectful to me: Ryder (the protagonist of the previous book, remember) essentially mocks Tyler for being abused by his father.
What. The. Actual. F**k.
Author—how dare you? How dare you make the Asian American character the most intolerant and reviled one out of your majority white cast, how dare you decide that his jerkishness is due to him being a survivor of parental physical abuse, and how dare you then have the previous (white) protagonist mock him for it?
What is wrong with you??
How dare you call yourself an ally to POC???
