2/5 stars
How’d I find it? I had the pleasure of hearing Min Jin Lee speak at an AWP panel back in 2018 and was inspired to pick up a copy of her work.
Why not 3 or more stars? In Free Food for Millionaires, Lee’s debut novel, Casey Han, a new Princeton graduate with a penchant for luxury goods and no idea what to do with her life, is forced into momentum when she becomes estranged from her parents and her boyfriend on the same night. This coming-of-age novel examines the pressure of becoming and the dynamic between expectation and desire, but doesn’t deliver beyond a well-written story, despite touching on religion, diasporas, late nineties’ culture, life in New York, and consumerism. Oh, and there’s something about millinery.