Minor Feelings

An Asian American Reckoning

By: Cathy Park Hong

Narrated by: Cathy Park Hong

Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE • A ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness

“Brilliant . . . To read this book is to become more human.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

In development as a television series starring and adapted by Greta Lee • One of Time’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, New Statesman, BuzzFeed, Esquire, The New York Public Library, and Book Riot

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.

Binding these essays together is Hong’s theory of “minor feelings.” As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they’re dissonant—and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her.

With sly humor and a poet’s searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche—and of a writer’s search to both uncover and speak the truth.

Praise for Minor Feelings

“Hong begins her new book of essays with a bang. . . .The essays wander a variegated terrain of memoir, criticism and polemic, oscillating between smooth proclamations of certainty and twitches of self-doubt. . . . Minor Feelings is studded with moments [of] candor and dark humor shot through with glittering self-awareness.”—The New York Times

“Hong uses her own experiences as a jumping off point to examine race and emotion in the United States.”—Newsweek

“Powerful . . . [Hong] brings together memoiristic personal essay and reflection, historical accounts and modern reporting, and other works of art and writing, in order to amplify a multitude of voices and capture Asian America as a collection of contradictions. She does so with sharp wit and radical transparency.”—Salon

©2020 Cathy Park Hong (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“[A] formidable new essay collection . . . I read Minor Feelings in a fugue of enveloping recognition and distancing flinch. . . . [Cathy Park] Hong is writing in agonized pursuit of a liberation that doesn’t look white—a new sound, a new affect, a new consciousness—and the result feels like what she was waiting for.”—Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror

“Minor Feelings is a major reckoning, pulling no punches as the author uses her life’s flashpoints to give voice to a wider Asian American experience, one with cascading consequences.”—NPR

“Hong dissects her experiences as an Asian American to create an intricate meditation on racial awareness in the U.S. Through a combination of cultural criticism and personal stories, Hong, a poet, lays bare the shame and confusion she felt in her youth as the daughter of Korean immigrants, and the way those feelings morphed as she grew older. From analyzing Richard Pryor’s stand-up to interrogating her relationship with the English language, Hong underscores essential themes of identity and otherness.”—Time

essential reading

Amazing book and would highly recommend - incredible writing and narration. Listened to nearly all of it in one sitting.

Wonderful listen.

This is not a classic linear story, but more a commentary on the life of an Asian American. The language is lyric and the narration is soft and kind.

Lukewarm on this book.

I read it to the end but I have to admit at times although the overall message is important it felt a bit preachy and hopeless. I found myself disheartened but the subject is disheartening and I don’t feel I am the right one to critique because I did not suffer any of what she and her family suffered.

Spot On

Never has a book been able to pinpoint my experiences. Tears, chicken skin and anger all called up so strongly. This is what you want to read.

Worth every minute.

So many thoughts and feelings were put into words. Hong deserves every acclaim for her thoughtful essays.

A must-read for all Americans

A powerful, deeply moving, and thought-provoking series of essays on American art, history, and mores in the context of the ongoing menace of White supremacy. The poet and artist Cathy Hong Park reflects on America’s structural contradictions and her own complex identity in ways that are chilling, heartbreaking, and hilarious, all at the same time. She is also a gifted storyteller to whom all Americans owe a debt of gratitude.

at last

Overall, I enjoyed Mrs. Park Hong's reading of this memoir. I found the back and forth hard to follow at first, but in the end, I understood that this was her story to tell. Minor Feelings is worth the listen. I look forward to reading the words of this book someday.

Three books in one on a singular platform

From discussing eye-ticks to college friendships that allude to helping the author forge who she is today, and closes with my favorite section about the book Dictee, and its author, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and her story. The title is one of the best I've seen, and the writing is excellent no doubt, however, it should have been sectioned off for better clarity.

On point and relatable

Thank you to Cathy for her book! I needed to hear this while I tore up my garden for renewal and growth in 2021.
We are starting an Asian
-American book club in Denver, and this is our first book that we will be covering.
I think this book is so important for society. Learning and living through awareness and not fear is essential. The last chapter hit home hard for me. The first chapter was completely relatable, to my own upbringing. I can’t thank the author enough for publishing this book.

heart touching story

growing up Korean Canadian, I've dealt with racism and struggling to find my own identity my entire life. This book is like a breathe of fresh air and my emotions were on full display for my heart to work through.