I'm Not Here to Make Friends / Andrew Yang / Book Review

Sabine Zhang has been watching Hotel California forever. So when she gets a chance to be on this season, she can’t say no. Hotel California isn’t like other reality shows. No melodrama. No forced friction and interpersonal conflict. It’s just a bunch of kids hanging out—Asian American and proud of it. For a girl like Sabine, one of the only Asian faces in her small Illinois town, this is a dream come true. 

But this season is different. This season, the show has been picked up by a bigger network. Sabine knows she’s out of her depth right away, and every other word out of her mouth seems to be a mistake, something that the producers can use to drive the cast apart. Drive Sabine away from the rest. 

What Sabine hoped would be a summer for her to connect with other Asian American kids instead becomes a chance for her to feel more self-conscious than ever. And with every misstep she makes, she starts to wonder if the mistakes aren’t just her own social awkwardness. Is there a bigger plan driving her away?

Thoughts

You know what reality tv is all about? The drama. You know what this book was lacking? Drama. Sure, there are some squabbling kinds of conflicts, but overall, this book is rather bland and tensionless. 

Pros

• Uncertain Footing: The one thing that this book gets right off the bat is placing these characters on uncertain footing. The whole setup of the show (and the book) is meant to play on their insecurities. Yoona and Sabine are two girls who are, in personality and personal philosophy, diametrically opposed. They are like oil and water: unlikely to mix well. They both want to get along for their own reasons, and so they work hard at this aim. But even as they start to fall in with one another, gain each other's trust, they rub each other wrong, making them doubt their friendship or inadvertently undermine their own agendas. And that feels incredibly--almost excruciatingly--realistic. It's painful to read, in a good way. 

• Manufactured Drama: It's what reality tv's all about, right? I really hate when an author adds drama to a story unnecessarily, so this sort of manipulative drama isn't usually to my taste. Except when it so clearly fits the plot... like when the director of a reality tv show is the one pulling the strings. When the layers of subtle manipulation were pulled back bit by bit throughout this book, it made me unfathomably angry... also in a good way. How dare they?!

• Calm: Sabine heads into this reality show knowing what to expect: low stakes, friendly banter, and a lot of lounging with new friends. The show doesn't turn out the way she expects, but the book does. This isn't a book full of melodrama, high-key action, anxiety-inducing stakes. It's not whacky or off-the-walls. It's just people being people and living their own lives, and to a certain level, I appreciated that. This book is relaxing. It's perfect for lounging at the beach, dipping your toes in the sand, and just reading. 

Cons

• Drawn-Out Intros: From the start, this book is slow, slow, slow. It starts with the long, drawn-out character introductions. I get why this happens. Yang is mirroring reality-tv intros, the filtering in of the personalities, the close-ups and the interview-worthy moments. But what makes those opening scenes in a reality show interesting isn't the fact that they happen but that they're edited to the extreme. These characters are introduced in a way that feels like raw footage: it takes too much time, and I definitely lost interest by the end. And when you're losing interest in the characters right from the beginning, well, that's never a good sign. 

• Lost the Plot: After a set of long, drawn-out introductions, my only question was, really, what's the plot here? What are we setting up to happen? And that was never really answered for me. There isn't really an actual plot until the very end, and that doesn't go much of anywhere. The characters are bland, and without great characters, the plotlessness of this book just left me feeling lost. What was I meant to be rooting for? What was I meant to want? Everything felt so aimless, and therefore, everything felt so tensionless. 

• So Much Talking: This comes in conjunction with the first two critiques. So many of the scenes in this book are just dialogue, no action. It's not even witty banter. (It's not even banter at all.) All of the characters sound pretty much the same, down to the diametrically opposed central duo. These characters are so very different that their perspectives should sound different, too, both internally and externally. But they all blend together. It felt weird. It felt bland. It was unfortunate. 

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

5/10

Fans of Abigail Hing Wen's Loveboat, Taipei will love this new Asian-American cast. Those who enjoyed Sophie Gonzales's Never Ever Getting Back Together will like dipping their toes into the world of "reality" once again. 

Details

Publisher: Quill Tree Books Books
Date: July 18, 2023
Series: N/A

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Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.