Free Food for Millionaires Kindle Edition

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5Casey Han — the daughter of Korean immigrants in Queens — craves a wealthy lifestyle she cannot afford, having been exposed to such while on a scholarship to Princeton. She craves “beauty and the illusion of a better life.” Casey balances pride, deeply embedded family traditions, and her emerging sense of self as she struggles to grow up and be the person she is slowly determining that she wants to be. While we follow Casey from graduation through the next five (or so) years, we are also treated to the developing stories of women who are important to her: her mother, a mentor, an acquaintance who rescues her and turns into a close friend. Rather than following a narrative arc, this book seems to follow a Life Arc — twisting and turning with sometimes rapid and surprising (to us and to Casey) shifts. The first novel by the author of Pachinko, you’ll recognize the style and treatment, while this book focuses on a Korean-American family and Pachinko is focused on 20th century Korea.Although only covering a few years, this book felt epic because of its size and incredible depth. The characters are far too detailed and deeply introspective to even hint at stereotypes. Psychological analysis, philosophical musings, and cultural context (somehow never the same for any two people) help move the inner story along while the external story is utterly unpredictable.The prose is beautiful, detailed, and rich. I love the way the author repeatedly and seamlessly contrasts the inner deliberations of each character with how his or her behavior appears to others. We are led through the minutiae of multiple lives that rarely go in the expected direction, but make do with the many, realistic tangents that comprise a life (regardless of any planning!). I appreciated the many domains that were brought to life by Casey’s experiences: investment banking and trading, millinery and fashion, church and faith, weddings, antiquarian books, and probably several others that I can no longer remember.There were so many good quotes, but I listened to most of it as an audio book while driving and couldn’t write down a single one. :-(

After enduring the silliness of the book halfway through (where I stopped), now's my chance to be caustic.The book's biggest contradiction and fallacy is the heroine Casey Han, whose personal maturation was the whole stake of the book, and who should have led us through the complex journey of being true to oneself in a hive of self-glorifying, self-justifying Ivy-grads, wallstreet pricks, real-estate moguls, loaded divorcees and what not. What we get instead is Casey, who hates these people not because they are empty and cocky, but because she burns with jealousy--she wants to be them so badly yet can't bring herself to become a good hardworking ladder-climber due to pride. In this way Casey is the true snob, more so than all the others combined: designer dresses and pearls are all she wants, but she doesn't want to admit it, and doesn't want to be seen as working for it. If the auhor had meant Casey's obsession with high fashion as a metaphor for the heroine's craving for beauty and "armor" against judgmental society (her "wonder woman cuffs,") I find the metaphor hypocritical and toxic: it presumes that these stuff are objectively beautiful rather than what they truly are, status symbols; and that you need such stuff to feel confident as a young Asian woman (not to be mistaken as a nanny, the book says, an anxiety which the white-passing Virginia is not subject to), when in fact you only need them if you are actively seeking acceptance in the world of snobs. It's not that rich people just happen to be monopolizing the fine things, as the book forcedly contends; fine things exist and stand for the riches. The book reads as one long whining that everybody deserves luxury goods (esp. Casey because she honed taste for these things working as a sales girl or whatever) and it's just unfair that you need money to access them. What makes Casey any different from the truck-load of yuppies that fill the book if she wants the same things for the same reason? You either have depth, or you don't; you can't embrace materialism as obsequiously as Casey does and soliloquize about being different and noble, now that's really bad taste. The character growth is a deadend when the character is a truly superficial person who believes in nothing except looks and a childish variety of agnosticism. The only thing barring her from full yuppy transformation is not genuine renunciation or critique of the human condition and its potential harmfulness, but a juvenile shame about being caught by others as trying and not being born into it. Because Casey's only problem is not being born into royalty, eventually it is not something that can be fixed. All of Casey's cynicism and bitterness ring empty because there is not a thing which she deeply believes in and tries to protect at all cost.I'm very disappointed in the book as I had big expectations coming from a similar background as Casey. As a middle-class kid who got through prep school and Ivy with scholarship I literally cannot avoid the classmate-turned-yuppies everywhere, hard as I try. I'm so sick of their sorry asses chasing me down for a lunch (my polite reluctance ignored) and seeking my approval that they are not just a sell-out, their inner life is somehow rich too and they've got it all. It is indeed difficult to keep your own ground in such a world, where everyone is pouncing at any opportunity to size you down and can't seem to leave the ones secure in their own worlds alone. That's unfortunately the way things are. But the book grossly over-simplifies the elite education by ignoring a whole class of people who fight against the pressure to cave. It's a pity that genuine intellectual curiosity has no place in this book, for example Virginia's master's in art history in Italy is degraded as a two-year sexcapade for the rich. Coincidentally Ella's degree is also in art history, this old notion of humanities as finishing school major sounds extremely outdated and philistine. Too bad that class anxiety is not an object of keen analysis and examination in this book, rather, the book itself is a case of class anxiety and consumes other good insights that might have been. Characters don't need to be perfect, but the book's inability to laugh at itself and the characters' weird self-rightuousness despite all their faults make them disagreeable.

After Pachinko - the depth and breadth of generations; history politics, and power - Free Food for Millionaires seemed totally on the surface with its ordinary, smaller themes of women’s lives. At first.At several points in the narrative I wondered where the story was going, but I needn’t have worried. It found its place perfectly; by the end all the pieces fell together like a well-constructed hat (which was the creative expression of the main protagonist). As an aspiring writer, the craft & skill evident in Min Jin Lee’s writing taught me a lot about how to write a complex story from many different perspectives; as an avid reader, her story had me enthralled. I read it compulsively, unable to stop even when I didn’t have time to read more.I highly recommend it.

Really good book, can’t stop reading once you start!

I enjoyed Lee's second novel, 'Pachinko', but this - her first novel - failed to impress me. An overlong, sprawling and ultimately directionless story about Korean-Americans living in New York in the 1990s, I was counting down the pages until I finished. The principal character, Casey, is very hard to like and irritated me greatly. A recent graduate with apparently good prospects, she manages to sabotage herself at every turn. The novel is only saved from one-star status by the subplots involving some nicer supporting characters.As a white British person, I found the Korean cultural elements far easier to comprehend than the wealthy American culture. I could understand the struggles of the poorer immigrant families, whereas all the talk of golf, conspicuous spending and 'B school' (an expression that isn't explained anywhere and took me a while to work out) and the corporate culture that goes with it, felt completely alien. Rather than drawing me in and enabling me to understand though, it left me just as baffled and contemptuous as when I started. I simply can't comprehend people who spend crazy money on clothes full stop (even if they have it) and certainly not when they are flat broke. Despite Casey not even being from a privileged background, her sheer lack of gratitude for the opportunities she was given made me want to yell at her.There is nothing more frustrating than a book character who constantly repeats the same stupid mistake over and over again, and Casey must be the epitome of this phenomenon. She managed to snatch failure and defeat from the jaws of victory and opportunity over and over again. Over the course of nearly 600 pages, she throws away a degree from Princeton, a relationship with a lovely well-matched man, the support of an implausibly rich and generous mentor, the love of well-meaning parents, and even the affection of her saintly friend. She seemed willing to work hard, but never stuck with anything. I honestly felt she got better than she deserved throughout, whereas the much nicer supporting characters seemed to contend with unfairness at every turn.At best you could say this gave me a glimpse into an unknown world - New York banking - but to be honest I'd rather not have seen it.

The author uses words paint so many brilliant pictures and to draw you into the lives of the characters. It was a slow read because of the fullness of her descriptions but so enjoyable - please read it!

I loved this book! Read her second book,Pachinko, which I really enjoyed.Bit hard to get into but once getting into the story I couldn’t wait to get to the end of the book to see how the various lives progressed.Can’t wait for her third to be published

I read Pachinko and was captivated; an absorbing novel and a great read.I assumed that Free Food for Millionaires would be in the same class. It is not even at the same school! Don't waste your time on this book, I could hardly believe it was the same author.By all means try Pachinko, but leave this one well alone.

I did not particularly connect with Casey, the main character of this book, so therefore didn't love the book. It did give an insight into the life of middle class Korean immigrants in New York and a young person trying to break away and lead their own life. Was probably a little too long and 'wordy' but beautifully written.