Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
A review of Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee.
“Clothing was magic. Casey believed this. She would never admit this to her classmates in any of her women’s studies courses, but she felt that an article of clothing could change a person... Each skirt, blouse, necklace, or humble shoe said something - certain pieces screamed, and others whispered seductively, but no matter, she experienced each item’s expression keenly, and she loved this world. every article suggested an image, a life, a kind of woman, and Casey felt drawn to them.”
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee (2007). Published by Grand Central Publishing.
In case you haven’t read my review of Pachinko, I’m going to outright spoil it right here: I didn’t like Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko. But, somehow, once I discovered she had this book out and it approximately was the same-sized brick as Pachinko, I reserved it at my local library. I’ll admit, I was curious. My main problem with Pachinko was that it should’ve been multiple books but it was crammed into one big one, but then when I saw this may be the same situation, I wanted to read it just to see if I thought Pachinko was a fluke and this one wasn’t. It is important to note, however, that this was Min Jin Lee’s debut novel in the fiction world and Pachinko came years after.
Enough about Pachinko! Free Food for Millionaires was Min Jin Lee’s debut in 2007, years after she had quit her lawyer job to become a fiction writer (partially due to her health condition, which didn’t allow her to be capable of working in a law office full time). In the introduction to the newer editions, she talks about being a writer that’s relying on her husband’s income while also being a mother, and I found that introduction to be absolutely critical to read as a young writer myself. Writing is really hard, but if you put your mind to it and put in the work, one day you’re going to find the results that you think make you successful.
Anyways, let’s continue onto the review of Free Food for Millionaires!
Content / Writing
I read the first chunk of the book, about one hundred pages, while sitting next to the Chesapeake Bay and waiting for the Fourth of July fireworks to star. After that point, I had to put the book down because I found the prose to be a bit dense and a lot happening at once. Our main character’s name is Casey, and she has literally just graduated a Princeton a week ago from the start of the book’s events. Her father seems to live in the past, always stuck on the Korean War and how he left behind his entire family in the north to sail for Busan. He is the head of a religious family, consisting of his wife Leah, himself, Casey, and their youngest daughter Tina. Tina is everything the family wished for: she’s openly religious, is secretly dating a Korean boy, and is a pre-med major and is on track to becoming a doctor.
Casey is secretly dating an older white boy, who, upon getting kicked out of her family’s home in Queens for talking back to her father, has cheated on her with two Southern girls. Casey literally walks in on them having a threesome, and, in tears and with very little money to survive in New York, runs out onto the street to basically start a new life. Except the problem is she has student loans, she’s extremely materialistic and into the high-culture lifestyle that New York has to offer, and she doesn’t really want anyone to help her.
Our main character is extremely dislikable, but that’s what makes her more relatable. There are so many girls like Casey Han being the dream of an immigrant family, and her family situation is extremely relatable even if you’re not Korean. For me, as an Iranian-American, I also had a father who lived in a past that doesn’t exist anymore and constantly bitched about how his life sucks and how he wants to go back to Iran. He never beat me (instead my mother was beat when they were married), but he also threatened to kick me out for dishonoring his name. It’s a really hard situation and it’s emotionally taxing. All of my sisters and me had to hide that we dated someone from my father, just like the Han sisters, lest we wanted to unleash his inner rage.
To expand upon the Korean point, when Lee was writing this novel, there weren’t as many mainstream novels about Korean-Americans and the lives that they lived. I think this novel did a great job of tapping into that world in a way that was more accessible for those not familiar with diaspora or Korean culture, which is why it was able to be as successful as it was. Does it read like a soap opera at times though? Definitely.
After reading this novel, I think my problem with Min Jin Lee’s work is that I just don’t care for her writing style. It’s good, and I can see how it appeals to many, especially for mainstream audiences, but I just can’t jibe with it. I also feel that her books are too long, but I’m also a lot pickier about character arcs and have everyone introduced be fleshed out. Lee just has too many characters and that breaks my taste, especially since some just fade in and out when I’m particularly intrigued by a certain character who essentially disappears.
Overall Thoughts
Just not my cup of tea at the end of the day. I found it difficult to get through and thus I didn’t want to keep reading, but it was kind of like watching a train wreck before your eyes. You just can’t look away. I will say though that this novel does indeed have its merits, such as how much thought and plotting must’ve gone into creating this monster. I think Lee does a great job in world building and making this environment seem so real and natural to readers, but I just can’t vibe with it at all. I’m also a prude when it comes to sex in novels and whatnot—if there’s too much of it and there doesn’t seem to be a reason for it, then I just don’t care. It doesn’t advance the plot and so I want to skip these parts. All in all, I just think I’m the wrong audience for this novel, hence a lower rating.
