Book Review: Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl, A Memoir by Hyeseung Song/ Memoir

Hello dear Readers,

Below is my book review of Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl, A Memoir by Hyeseung Song.

Title: Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Genre: Memoir

Author: Hyeseung Song

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: July 16, 2024

Language: English

Hardcover: 304 pages
Meet the Author: Hyeseung Song
Buy Me: Amazon

Book Description

For readers of Crying in H Mart and Minor Feelings as well as lovers of the film Minari comes a searing coming-of-age memoir about the daughter of ambitious Asian American immigrants and her search for self-worth.

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Hyeseung Song spends her earliest years in the cane fields of Texas where her loyalties are divided between a restless father in search of Big Money, and a beautiful yet domineering mother whose resentments about her own life compromises her relationship with her daughter. With her parents at constant odds, Song learns more words in Korean for hatred than for love. When the family’s fake Gucci business lands them in bankruptcy, Song moves to a new elementary school. On her first day, a girl asks the teacher: “Can she speak English?”

Neither rich nor white, Song does what is necessary to be visible: she internalizes the model minority myth as well as her beloved mother’s dreams to see her on a secure path. Song meets these expectations by attending the best Ivy League universities in the country. But when she wavers, in search of an artistic life on her own terms, her mother warns, “Happiness is what unexceptional people tell themselves when they don’t have the talent and drive to go after real success.” Years of self-erasure take a toll and Song experiences recurring episodes of depression and mania. A thought repeats: I want to die. I want to die. Song enters a psychiatric hospital where she meets patients with similar struggles. So begins her sweeping journey to heal herself by losing everything.

Unflinching and lyrical, Docile is one woman’s story of subverting the model minority myth, contending with mental illness, and finding her self-worth by looking within.

My Thoughts

I love love this memoir. So fascinating, complicated, and honest. 

Hyeseung shares her story with such honesty and transparency, that it is almost impossible to be mad at her for some decisions she makes in life, nor not to understand why she made those decisions. I felt Hyeseung and her story to be one where we can relate in so many ways, one where she is trying to understand her mom, dad, and herself but also makes us think about our own lives. 

Thank you Simon & Schuster and Netgalley, for the free advanced copy, in exchange for an honest review. 

Wendy