This book was not at all what I thought it would be. It honestly read like somebody's dissertation, that they thought would work well as a book and it really didn't at all.

More a thesis on political and cultural differences in the East vs West than a book about Bruce Lee.

I have been a fan for as long as I can remember. This book does little for his value as one of the greatest of all time - or the impact he had on many cultures.

If I were reading for a political class - perhaps this book would have had merit. But for information about Bruce Lee and his life - not so much.

Like so many authors need to remember - keep your politics to yourself. You are writing for enjoyment - not to sway people to your views!!

Well, Like Water is not what I expected. It’s a long and arduous read. The first 2 chapters were extremely boring. I for one didn’t care about the history of feudal China in the 1700’s – 1800’s and didn’t see the point of all that background. Chapter 3 is where it started to get interesting when Bruce Lee’s life started. But the chapters are so long that I nearly gave up at that point.

There are quite a number of peaks and valleys. More valleys than peaks, in my opinion. And that is what made me start skimming the chapters from the 66% point.

I didn’t quite understand how the author attached cultural symbolisms to Lee’s movies, and I considered the author’s opinions to be a bit of over thinking and over analyzing. But who am I to judge.

There’s a lot of window dressing in the book and that is probably why the chapters are so long. But what really killed it for me was the author’s political assertions. Clearly he is anti-Trump and pro-BLM. Sometimes it’s best to leave your politcal beliefs out of the picture. One star.

I received a digital ARC from NYU Press through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher NYU Press for an advanced copy of this new cultural history and biography.

When my mother had to work nights as a nurse on weekends my father and I would stay up late and watch the offerings that late night cable television had to offer. Tons of zombie movies, Cheech & Chong, rock concerts disaster pics. But it was the martial arts movie that my dad loved. Especially Bruce Lee. I had never heard my father talk about a man, especially a man who was so different then what you would expect a Bronx Irish Catholic man like my father to gush about. But Bruce Lee had that effect on people. In Like Water: A Cultural History of Bruce Lee, Daryl Joji Maeda discusses the man, the history and influences that made him who he was, and how he became an artist and phenomenon that continues to be written and examined fifty years after his passing.

The book begins with a brief history of the times and history of the Pacific area, the migration of Chinese and how they came to America, and the racism that they met there. What is still astonishing is the racism that was so engrained in the American system, and well that continues to this day. How everything from the look their arts their food, was thought about as lesser and unworthy of discussion and respect. Politics, Chinese opera, the tongs, and of course food is shown and the slow influences about the society around him. The book is both a biography of Bruce Lee, trying to clear up many of the misconceptions and stories about Bruce, will fitting him into the times. What comes across most is the fire, the assuredness of the man who knew he could be great, and worked super hard to be great, and might have lead to his early death. Also the fact that his movies bridged cultural and racial divides.

The first thing I found intriguing was the fact that so much is known about the man as everyone seems to have written or discussed knowing Bruce Lee, but that so much is either wrong, or changed in movies, even documentaries for dramatic presentation. Starting even at birth. What hospital was he born in, was his father present or in New York with his opera company. How did he hurt himself, even how he passed away. There is a lot of research and many topics covered, which I found very informative as much of the information was new to me. The writing is clear and when there seems to be an inconsistency the author will put them all down, and analyze them to see what could be the truth. There is plenty of information about the making of the movies, the cast and others in the orbit of Bruce Lee's life, which I also enjoyed.

A very interesting history about a complex man. The reader does come away with a lot of What If? questions and thoughts. What if he hadn't passed away would Bruce Lee had stayed in Hong Kong, would he have moved to Hollywood. What would have happened to the Hong Kong film industry, would it have become the powerful force it was, or would have all the promising stars migrated almost in a new gold rush to California and stardom. Recommended for film historians, Bruce Lee fans and for people who wish to understand the Chinese experience in America before and after Bruce Lee.

Rather than a biography of Lee, or a critique of his work, this is a refreshing analysis of the world that produced him--a trans-Pacific cultural milieu spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the deep dives are his ancestors' status as British trade comprador agents, Chinese opera companies in California for the diaspora workers, Chinese-American philanthropy, early Chinese film studios, triads in Hong Kong, the rise of Ruby Chow as a female politician in 1960s Seattle (as well as a successful restaurateur mainstreaming Asian cuisine) and the role Lee played in being an unabashedly Asian masculine sex symbol at a time when Vietnam rendered Asians into racist caricatures of submission or sneaky hostility (also making Lee a popular idol for other POC). Fluidly written and sensitively researched, this is a fascinating view of one man who contained cultural multitudes.

Maeda has an idea- that he can study how Lee was a part of both Eastern and Western pop culture and compare and contrast how and why (the word 'transpacific' will be used far too many times in this book). But after stating this intention, the execution amounts to little more than another autobiography of Bruce Lee- and as unkind as it is to state it, there are already better titles out there for that.. In the beginning of the book, the author cites multiple predecessors to his book in the genre of books about Bruce Lee. I eventually ended up reading two of those, and found them to be superior to this book.

Ultimately, I don't think there was enough material in this line of thought for an entire book. The idea may be been better suited to a smaller format, like an academic paper.

I am a huge fan of Bruce Lee and was very excited when seeing this book. I found it very engaging as a cultural history not just of Bruce but the worlds in which he lived. My interest in the book, though, waned and I found myself not as fully engaged with the text as I initially had hoped.

Overall, though, still a very good and quite readable look back at amazing man and cultural icon.