Taiwanese-American PhD student Ingrid Yang has already sent ages on her dissertation with little - make that nothing - to show for it. Her topic? The late, great Chinese-American poet Xiao-Wen Chou - a subject she hates more with each passing day. After all, she always tried to avoid any ties to her own culture and heritage. Hell, she can barely speak her family’s native language - forcing her parents at a young to only speak to her in English. Oh, and there’s also the tiny, pestering fact that she has never dated an Asian man before. She’s convinced her boyfriend Stephen is the love of her life though. He checks all the boxes a good partner is supposed to check. He’s even a professional translator, working on translating the novel of a (in Ingrid’s mind) way-too-cute and way-too-friendly Japanese woman. But it’s fine, Ingrid tells herself, even as she gets increasingly bad stomach pains, hallucinates frequently due to her use of an over-the-counter allergy medication, and fights confusing bouts of depression and apathy towards her boyfriend.

So, although she is reluctant to admit it, things actually aren’t going that well for Ingrid. Which means, when she finds a message left in the Xiao-Wen Chou archives, she clings to it in the hopes that she might have the key to finally escaping the drudgery of academic life - especially academia she has an increasing disinterest in.

However, the note leads Ingrid to a shocking discovery - one that slowly but surely turns her entire worldview upside down. In the span of a few weeks, she and her best friend are led down a rabbit hole of both inner and outer discoveries - about themselves, about each other, and about the cruel reality of the world around them. Together they experiences everything from books burnings to campus protests and even Yellow Peril 2.0 propaganda.

As the dust settles after Ingrid’s discovery, nothing is really the same to her as it was before - especially her very white boyfriend. Ingrid starts seeing her life in a new light - and what she sees is starting to make her really uncomfortable.

Although literary in tone, the book harbors many humorous moments, making for a pretty great read if you’re in for the slow start. If you’re a fan of dark academia and incisive explorations of racism, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll find this book enlightening. Disorientation really delves into the horrors and complexities of institutionalized racism with a satirical and introspective tone.

I think, for some, the main character will come off as unlikeable at first, for a variety of reasons. You can really feel Ingrid’s own self hatred, although she doesn’t see it for what it is. It’s both frustrating and hard at times to read as she does things that seem counterintuitive or circumvents obvious conclusions. At the same time, this makes the character growth and development so much more real. It certainly opened my eyes to a new perspective on academic institutions and they the way they perpetuate racism within their walls. Although the book is not a favorite of mine in terms of general enjoyment I got from reading, I will say I am more than glad I read it and I would happily recommend it to others. (3.5 stars)

really enjoyed reading this, even laughed out loud a few times! I think it struggles from the same issues I have with other satires—namely, that it becomes so cacophonous with what it satirizes that I struggle to follow the thread, and that characters become cartoonish where I wanted them to maintain a bit more nuance. But overall, a great time.

It's been two years since I read this book, and it still looms just as large in my mind today as the day I read it. 'Disorientation' is a dark comedy of the highest order, a satire so brilliant and relevant that I bring it up in any discussion involving 'The Sellout' by Paul Beatty and, lately, 'Yellowface' by R.F. Kuang.

On the surface, it is about an uninspired Asian American Ph.D. candidate trying to cobble together a dissertation on the works of a beloved Chinese poet. A rather mundane premise, but the book unravels quickly, and everything is so deliciously uncomfortable and off-kilter that one just can’t look away. This book uses the intricacies and inequalities in academia and literature as a vehicle to showcase larger themes of racial discrimination. Everything is laid bare: the systematic issues, the microaggressions, yellow fear, yellow face, the expectation of the model minority, the white gaze, white guilt, weaponizing identity and race. The whole kitchen sink is thrown at you, leaving you dizzy and disoriented.

The real kicker is that there is no happily ever after in a book like this; there is no satisfying conclusion where the good guys win in the end and racism is forever solved. It does have a conclusion, but it’s one without moral grandstanding and a clear delineation between who’s in the right and what’s in the wrong. Maybe the author believes her job is to take reality and spin it into a rich and coherent tapestry and show it to us, but what we glean from that art is entirely up to us.

Disorientation is a great exploration of the relationship between someone's culture and their work -- what is the difference between a Taiwanese American writing about a Chinese poet and her white American husband translating a Japanese author? Where is there appropriation and where is there cultural respect? How can one handle things appropriately and what obligations do they have to their or others' culture?

A lovely and frustrating experience of a book, perfect for millennials frustrated and caught up in webs of mess. The academic scene and the quick and ridiculous series of events was at times a bit over the top, but it was highly readable and had a lot to say about things we're dealing with today.

I absolutely adored this book! This is the book that should have been famous instead of Yellowface.

Basically this book follows a woman who is struggling through finishing her doctoral studies when she uncovers a lot ploy around yellowface in publishing and academia. As someone who just started a PhD, I really enjoyed the sardonic tone the author used to portray academic life and circles. I also loved the discussions around ethnicity. It was so much more well explored than in the book aforementioned.

This will be a book for those who might have an insight into academia or are interested in it, and those who want a real exploration of yellowface themes within an North American context. All within a well-written, page-turning novel. Can't wait for what Elaine Hsieh Chou does next!

This one was such a mid bending satire, I couldn’t put it down. I feel like I learned so much reading this book, and the thing I learned the hardest was that one person’s experience is one person’s experience, and the whole of humanity has to stop lumping human experiences together based on region, ethnicity, religion, etc. All people are unique and all experiences are singular. I loved Ingrid’s desperate attempts at finding the right answers about Chou, and the unraveling of his fake identity. It reminded me of the faux African American professor who taught African American history but was actually just a white women.

I understood how the book dealt with Asian identity in academia, but the academia stuff lost me sometimes. The characters were interesting. The plot was glacial.

I'm not sure what to say about this book...I enjoyed reading it, but it was very surreal. The title is totally appropriate.

All I can say about this book is that it was one wild ride within the academic field. The question of who gets to write what is evident throughout this story. I liken this to Kuang's Yellowface. This story is unique as it delves into the complexity that is the doctoral candidacy and how much can influence your topic of research.

This is a story I have been thinking about often since finishing.

Definitely disorienting because some lines really did hit me upside the head and deep in the feels. I enjoyed following the main character’s challenges that are often unspoken in our modern life.

This was pretty good. Not my favorite book of all time, but I enjoyed reading it. Thank you for the opportunity!

Late to the party but this is remarkable. Loved every moment of this wild ride and did not see the twist coming (nor did I foresee it happening so early). Chou is so precise with her scene work and plot and I could not recommend this book more.

Fun, irreverent, thoroughly-researched, I was grabbed by this novel at the very beginning. Finished this page-turner in two nights.

I will be honest: this book tries to do A LOT. Mostly it does it successfully. It's funny, it will make you squirm, and it doesn't shy away from anything. It highlights the complexities of cultural appropriation, representation, and power dynamics in academia and beyond.

I appreciated how hard this goes. We see so much of our current culture reflected in what starts as a simple story about how Ingrid Yang can't finish the dissertation she never really wanted to write. It takes off from there to become a story about who gets to tell what stories, how groups police themselves, and how the rest of the world sees the internal workings of academic spaces. It's messy and absurd, but perhaps that's because we live in a messy and absurd world.

This satirical look at racism in academia was entertaining and biting. While some parts were slightly unbelievable, like how Ingrid could be so clueless in the beginning. But overall it was a stellar read.

Disorientation is filled with potential from exploration of culture to its original plot, however, the execution was lacking. The writing couldn't decide what it wanted to be - it teetered the edges of Young Adult and New Adult when it should have fully immersed itself into New Adult. If Ingrid was a few years younger, I could understand the lack of balance, but because she was a 29-year-old PhD candidate, it didn't fit the style of the novel. I did find Ingrid and her motivations very realistic and I think it will sit well with a very niche audience.

This is one of those books that was so aggressively smart that I can't fathom writing a review that will do it justice (especially as a white woman). A scathing, satirical indictment of whiteness, academia, whites in academia, patriarchy, and the absurdities wrought by the colonialist project at every conceivable level, DISORIENTATION was a propulsive read. It felt in conversation with two more serious books I read on either side of it (Minor Feelings and This Woman's Work) and months later, BABEL; but it had a form and cleverness to it that set it apart from any other book I read last year. Wish I'd had this to read before/during grad school (though the resulting existential crisis might've sunk me).

Ingrid Yang is a twenty-nine year old Ph.D. candidate trying to complete her dissertation during her eighth year at Barnes University in Wittlebury, Massachusetts. When Ingrid discovers the poet who is subject of her work is a fraud, her personal and professional life erupt. This contemporary satirical novel with hints of amateur sleuth explores Asian-American life and academia. Ingrid experiences a lot of anxiety that is evident in the numerous strong interjections on every page early on in the novel. Once readers get passed these multiple exclamation points, they will be treated to a good novel.

I've never read a book like this! It topped my reading for 2022. I was engrossed in the story and the parallels it draws to our times. It was prescient and it was able to allow me to take in the madness of the past several years. It gave me vocabulary to articulate emotions I have felt amidst so much turbulence.