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Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart
Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart: A Memoir | Jen Sookfong Lee
10 posts | 6 read | 6 to read
A sharply observed and beautifully intimate memoir-in-pieces that uses one woman's life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity, belonging, grief, and the power of female rage. For most of Jen Sookfong Lee's life, pop culture was an escape from family tragedy and a means of fitting in with the larger culture around her. Anne of Green Gables promised her that, despite losing her father at the age of twelve, one day she might still have the loving family of her dreams. Princess Diana was proof that maybe there was more to being a good girl after all. And yet as Jen grew up, she began to recognize the ways in which pop culture was not made for someone like herthe child of Chinese immigrant parents who looked for safety in the invisibility afforded by embracing model minority myths. Ranging from the unattainable perfection of Gwyneth Paltrow and the father-figure familiarity of Bob Ross, to the long shadow cast by The Joy Luck Club and the life lessons she has learned from Rihanna, Jen weaves together key moments in pop culture with stories of her own failings, longings, and struggles as she navigates the minefields that come with carving her own path as an Asian woman, single mother, and writer. And with great wit, bracing honesty, and a deep appreciation for the ways culture shapes us, she draws direct lines between the spectacle of the popular, the intimacy of our personal bonds, and the social foundations of our collective obsessions.
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kwmg40
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Pickpick

Contrary to what the title implies, this book really isn't about pop culture. Instead, it's a memoir about growing up as a Chinese Canadian and how pop culture icons figured largely in her life as she dealt with grief, abuse, racism and mental illness.

#BookSpinBingo #BookSpin @TheAromaofBooks
#gottacatchemall (prompt 63. Ponyta: Colourful book cover) @Puddlejumper

PuddleJumper ❤️❤️ 2mo
TheAromaofBooks Great progress!! 2mo
42 likes2 comments
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Andrea313
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Enjoying the Sunday Special, aka an hour alone at a cafe with a book and a coffee. I'm loving this one so far (had me teary in the first chapter) and I imagine I'll tear through the rest pretty quickly. Hope everyone out there found a moment of rest today! #CurrentlyReading

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Gleefulreader
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Pickpick

This one is interesting because it looks, on the surface, to be an exploration of pop culture but it really isn‘t and the title feels like a misrepresentation. The book is a memoir of growing up Chinese-Canadian, the author‘s difficult relationship with her mother and being one of five daughters in her family seen through a lens of pop culture (which works in some places and feels more forced in others).

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MysticFaerie
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Pickpick

4.5⭐️/5⭐️

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BookishTrish
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Pickpick

I really enjoyed this collection of essays about Jen‘s life and her reflections on pop culture. From Anne of Green Gables to Justin Bieber to Bob Ross to Kris Jenner, Jen‘s interests allow her to explore her thoughts on misogyny, anti-Asian racism, motherhood and more. A very sensitive and insightful book.

52 likes1 stack add
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Bookalong
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Pickpick

There is much honesty and vulnerability in these essays. Her writing is funny and warm. I did have a disconnected reading experience with this, thats not to say it's not good more about my personal experience with it as I'm not an Asian woman. I enjoyed reading these essays and appreciated her insight into popular culture and how she used this to explore family, identity, belonging as well as being an Asian woman and writer in today's society.

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Lindy
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In her moving memoir, Vancouverite Jen Sookfong Lee makes astute observations about the interplay between our private lives & the social culture we live in. Anne of Green Gables, The Joy Luck Club, Justin Bieber, the Kardashians & Bob Ross are some of the pop culture icons through which she views the effects of model minority mentality, anti-Asian racism & misogyny upon creating her own identity as a sexual being, a mother & a writer. #Canadian

39 likes5 stack adds
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Dragon
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#WondrousWednesday @Eggs Thanks for the tag @IndoorDame 1. Stress reduction. 2. The audiobook of the tagged book 3. Robert Osman - cozy mysteries

Eggs Thanks for joining in 🌸 2y
27 likes2 comments
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Lindy
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We‘ve finally had a break in the bitter weather, so I took myself to the Art Gallery of Alberta. #audiowalking + audiobook on transit

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Lindy
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I have never painted a landscape on canvas, but Bob Ross is so much a part of my lonely childhood memories that I truly believe I could.

IndoorDame The best part of childhood!!! 2y
Lindy @IndoorDame The author says she listens to Bob Ross when she has insomnia now. Very soothing. 😴 2y
36 likes1 stack add2 comments