The style (at least the opening paragraphs http://www.goldsea.com/Bookview/Fiction/Banana/banana.html) looks like it's lifted from David Foster Wallace, unfortunately. See "Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All" from "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" Pg. 83. Here is a quote from the DFW piece: "I'm on I-55 going S/SW. The sun's a blotch in a sky that isn't so much cloudy as opaque. The corn starts just past the breakdown lanes and goes right to the sky's hem...Locusts chirr in every field, a brassy electric sound that Dopplers oddly in the speeding car..." etc.

I think that this book defines CBC culture quite well. It answers the question, "Who exactly are the Canadian Born Chinese." CBC culture is something that definitely exists but is vague and ambiguous, without clear boundaries and thus is very difficult to define. CBC's lie in the crack between two cultures and are always trying to find their place in society.

I find that characters in other ABC/CBC books are ashamed of their ethnicity and defy their Chinese background. This book, however, illustrates quite well the confusion and hardships endured growing up as a CBC, without the characters resenting their culture.

Setting aside the inaccurate generalization and perception (and slight resentment and bitterness) of CBC women and digression on the author's favourite music through Luke's character, it was an excellent read. I already read it twice in two months. Definitely the best CBC/ABC read so far. Well done.

It's about time somebody presents the Asian Canadian demographic correctly. All major characters are normal CBCs you'd meet in real life; no kung fu masters, no gangsters, and certainly no William Hung! However, this novel also has a lot to say about friendship, and the importance of it.
Read it... you might learn something.

I must disagree with J. Fitzpatrick [previous reviewer].

The only similarity Banana Boys had to The Joy Luck club was the fact that it happened to be about North American [in this case, Canadian] born Chinese characters.

Well what is so wrong with that? We... the Canadian born Chinese Culture... happen to exist here on this earth. And we... the Canadian born Chinese Culture... just so happen to have many similarities with the way we grew up, were raised, and the way we have cultivated some of our values, attitudes and even to some extent, behaviours. The only thing that stuck out as similar at all between Banana Boys and The Joy Luck club was that they exposed these similarities as well as how they exposed the characters as having their own individualistic traits.

Banana Boys, however, was more down to earth, less fluff, and more… real.

Terry Woo demonstrated a truer portrait of this interesting and colourful subculture. Sure I admit that I enjoyed the entertaining value o