Free Food for Millionaires

Starting off, I really liked this book. I married into a Korean family and could relate to much of the writing. I couldn't put it down for 3/4 of the book. I read word after word of all of the many characters introduced. I was so anxious to finish and find out the futures of each character. Unfortunately, I got to the last 1/4 of the book and found myself skipping ahead, past the many paragraphs of internal dialogue of feelings and background. I knew the end was coming and wanted more action. Then the book just ended. No tie-ups of the story lines. Just more interactions between characters. Was almost like she wanted to end the book but didn't know how.

Often times we question culture; we are a melting pot. Why? Why?Why? Chinese restaurant staff have their children in the kitchen with them. Hispanic culture values food and family above all else. This book answers many questions about the Korean culture. We meet Casey Han, Korean daughter of immigrants in the dry cleaning business. We follow her from post graduation days of Princeton to her early 30s. With the seasons and years that pass, we begin to understand the culture. The allegiance to parents, the hiding of white boyfriends, the importance of certain recipes and above all, the educational demands and expectations. It was a vivid page turner and a complete delight. Some sadness, yes, definitely. I now have clarity.

I was going to title this "A Young Christian Woman's Journey," but figured that might turn off some potential readers, more's the pity.
As the other review said, this was a book I found hard to put down. As a child of one immigrant (Hispanic) parent, I could relate a lot to the heroine's perspective, although she was Korean-American. Also, having attended Smith College, I also enjoyed reading about this post-graduation Ivy League, New York City world. Though not nearly as insular-sounding as Min Jin Lee made it, there definitely was that contingent of graduates who left Northampton, Mass. bound for the Big Apple to investment firms, banks, and law offices for a year or two before they headed on to graduate school for MBA's & law degrees.
I really liked the depth of this story, the way it was told from several different points of view, even though the author kept coming back to the main character, the heroine, Casey. Even the less likable characters had their point of view, so it was impossible to hate anyone, even when they behaved despicably. There was a strong Christian spiritual thread throughout it which I found very realistic. Watching my own teenagers come to terms with life, sexuality, the Christian faith they were brought up with, I admired the way Lee showed how complicated it all is and that there are no easy answers.
My only gripe with the story was the way it ended; it was too abrupt. I was left feeling the author got tired of writing or had reached the necessary page count and had to end. Too many things were left unresolved--the heroine's own life as well as that of her mother and Dr. Shim's crush on her. This might have been deliberate, but it wasn't satisfying to this reader. I felt the way I feel a lot of times reading a Henry James novel.
But all in all, I wonderful story from a very talented writer, one whose work I'd like to read again.

Free Food for Millionaires is a hefty book, but it was pretty light reading and a great summer/beach read. Not sure that I'd recommend it to my guy friends-I'd go so far as to say it's a "chick lit" book (I'm not a fan of fluffy/fake/trashy chick lit, but do enjoy smart, well-written books written by women for women) though it goes a little deeper than most chick lits. Some of the book's themes are more serious-race, society, class, love, religion, infidelity-and the writing is more like Jodi Picoult than Jennifer Weiner.

The book centers on Casey Han, a Korean-American twenty-something who graduates from Princeton, moves back home to Queens, where her parents own a dry cleaners, and begins her life as an adult. The story takes covers her 4+ years after college and her (and her friends/family's) good, bad and ugly life decisions. I kept asking myself if she was believable as a character (she's certainly complex) considering she's a Princeton grad, gets her MBA at NYU, has a golf handicap of 14, reads the Bible and attends church weekly, but also puts herself in immense credit card debt, will buy extremely high end clothing in order to keep up appearances and makes bad decisions about guys. Some of her decisions are based on finding her identity, grappling with her very traditional Korean family and upbringing and trying to manage independently in a city like New York. So maybe not totally believable, but to some extent, most of us can relate to her in some way.

Auther Min Jin Lee also delves into the lives of other characters, like Casey's mom, her friend Ella, etc., which helps make the book multidimensional rather than just about Casey. Whether you're reading about Casey or her friends and family, the book centers around relationships and love. But with all that happens to the characters in the book (rape, amazing acts of generosity, a three-some, admittance to the most competitive schools in the U.S.), I have to say the book becomes slightly melodramatic...though never boring!

I really enjoyed Free Food for Millionaires! I can't say I've read a book just like it. Considering this is Lee's first novel, I was impressed. And my comments just barely touch on all that goes on in this book-the characters are so well developed, the plot has many twists and turns, and it's an engrossing read. I think you'll find it hard to put down.

I read this book after Pachinko which I fell head over heels for. What I value most of Lee's books is her honesty and kindness - a rare combination.

The intelligence, wisdom, humor, and most of all, compassion of Lee's voice made me feel like a better person after turning the last page of both of her books.

However this book is an earlier work of a master, and the story spans mostly a few years and among a group of New Yorkers, immigrants and not, rich and poor. It is an entertaining and insightful read for me.

Reviewed by Cherie Fisher for Reader Views (6/07)

Min Jin Lee's debut novel "Free Food for Millionaires" is masterful storytelling. She cleverly weaves complex relationships into a story about success, high fashion, competition, heartbreak and introspection.

The story begins when Casey Han returns home to her small family apartment in New York after she graduates from Princeton. Casey and her family are from Korea and her parents have worked hard at their jobs to ensure that both of their daughters would be able to get a wonderful education and have great careers. Casey has been accepted into Law School but has decided to defer her entrance for one year to get some life experience. Her father disagrees with this decision and this leads to a terrible falling out. Casey figures that she will move in with her boyfriend Jay, but things fall apart there too when Casey walks in on him doing the unthinkable. So she strikes out on her own with help from Ella, a friend who has always looked up to Casey.

With assistance from Ella's fiancé, Casey lands a job with Kearn Davis as a sales assistant and she continues to work for her friend Sabine who owns an upscale department store. Casey loves expensive things and continually gets herself in over her head financially throughout the story. As Casey spends more time in the world that she worked so hard at school to join, she begins to question the shallowness of it and is not sure that the money earned is worth the sacrifices that a person must make.

"Free Food for Millionaires" is not just about Casey Han. Min Jin Lee also writes from the perspective of the people closest to Casey; this gives the book additional depth and perspective. She shows human beings at their best and worst and still manages to make them very likable.

I found this book to be very well-written and rich in culture and human dimension. Women of all ages will enjoy this story. I look forward to more books from the author. I think that "Free Food for Millionaires" would also make a great movie.

Received book free of charge.

I really enjoyed this book. The story is big and spans quite a few years. Ms. Lee brilliantly captures the spirit of the times in which this novel takes place. Many reviews have already been submitted offering plot descriptions, so I will avoid that here. What I would like to say is that this novel, with its flawed characters and comentary on social life and class differences in New York reminded me very much of Edith Wharton and Henry James...two authors I enjoy reading very much.
If you are looking for a novel that "wraps" everything up in bow and provides all the answers...well, this is not the novel for you. If, on the otherhand you care to read about people who attempt to find their answers and comforts through their loves, marriages, children, educations, careers, financial security and religion...and still come up wanting...this book will ring quite true. After all...isn't that the way life often works anyway? Often...'the immigrant' experience in fiction is glorified with a disproportionate emphasis on the 'immigrant success story'. But Ms. Lee seems to point out the reality that beneath the visable success in many of these stories, there is as much disappointment as the rest of us experience.

THis was a gem of a novel. Insight on what it was like for a second generation emigrant with high aspirations for herself. We learn about her lovers, her parents and her hard worklife on Wall Street. I read it in one week.... which is quick for me. I look forward to Min Jin Lee's next book.

LOVED the title. Wanted to see how it played in the novel, that theme of "the rich get all the free food." Maybe that alone (and curiosity about the central character, Casey Han, who struck me as unique enough to be interesting) kept me reading almost 600 pages.

SPOILER ALERT:

There were many threads that did not actually get developed: the Bible reading thing, the hat designing thing. They were very perfunctorily treated. I should have stopped reading. But the author was able to keep enough balls in the air (Casey Han's mom, Leah, wanting to know her fate; Ella, a friend whose ambitious Korean husband leaves her for a Christina Hendricks-type office girl) so that I kept turning the pages. Generally, the men (except for the minor characters, like a doorman named George; a surprisingly sweet playboy named Hugh Underhill) were not compelling. In fact, there wasn't a single man in this hefty novel that I really empathized with. A major male character, Unu, is just -- stupid. Perhaps I did feel slight sympathy for Ted, Ella's first husband. Because he chose unwisely, for the first time in his life.

I sometimes actually forgot that the main character was Korean American. Then I'd read a section about her parents and get reminded. Much was made of Casey Han's active sex life. Alas, for 600 pages, she only has two lovers, and she doesn't much enjoy having sex with either, although very close to the end, the author tells us that Casey found sex with one of the men "enthralling." Though the sex scene that follows is totally lacking in heat. But she didn't love the guy (so what makes this important? It's a surprisingly conventional thought for a sexually active, liberated American woman), and she throws a tantrum because, after snooping in his closet, she finds a stash of porn, watches a tape, and it shows an Asian woman, and she wonders if the guy came on to her because he always had a fantasy about having an Asian woman ... This enrages her, and she storms out, and ... well, I still have 20 pages to read, but I'm guessing she goes back to her ex, the one with the gambling addiction, because he still loves her, and she still loves him, and so forth. Oh well, I guess that'll do for closure.

Oh, and I forgot about Casey's fancy Princeton degree, about 50 pages in. In fact, by the end of the novel, I completely FORGOT about the Princeton degree, until it came time to find tags for this review. She never thinks about it, never even describes her memories of Princeton, after the first hundred or so pages. Princeton could be xxxx college in Boston/New York/ Philadelphia (you pick), for all we know.

I'll probably still read Lee's next novel, though. So I guess the last laugh's on me.

I have to admit, I'm torn over this book. Having just finished it about twenty minutes ago, I both hated and enjoyed it. The ending felt not like an ending at all, but at the same time it was sort of optimistically unresolved. Perhaps my ambivalence is a sign in and of itself.

I picked the book up because the description of the "protagonist" Casey reminded me of a dear friend. Well, the resemblance turned out to be weak, but I found myself engaged by these characters (despite their -- MAJOR -- flaws) so I kept going. (I put "protagonist" in quotes because there was a huge cast of characters, all of whose minds we enter, and many of whom we spend an equal amount of time with as Casey, so it was sort of hard to unclear who we were rooting for.)

Also, coming from an Asian background, I found the insight into the Korean community very interesting and not dissimilar to that of the Chinese/Taiwanese one I experienced.

For some reason, the length of the book didn't hit me until I was about 100 pages in and I realized that very little had actually happened. The most exciting things occur in the first 30 or so pages, and then it's just sort of one event after another. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster -- but one that didn't have very high ups or downs or go very fast -- it just kept moving, and since I was already on it, I went along.

I did find a handful of "gems" to underline, but in a 600 page book, I guess that's not much as I would have liked.

Most of all, I found the interactions between the characters to be flat. They were TOLD well, I suppose, but never really shown. (Ex. the author told me of Casey's love for Sabine, but I never really saw it.) Much of the dialogue was also stilted, meaning it sounded like it would be delivered by soap opera actors instead of Hollywood's A-list.

I think that is this book's biggest flaw: the quality/style of writing does not live up (or hold up) to this ambitious of a story.

I read somewhere (on her Web site, maybe?) that the author intentionally wrote in this style, never settling on one character's perspective or voice, in an attempt to imitate the style of 19th century European authors. I guess I don't think that was wholly successful -- but at the same time, it didn't fail so horribly as to make me stop.

And finally, there is very little happiness sprinkled throughout the pages. My view of the world is not generally dim, so that was a bit strange for me.

In spite of ALL that, I finished, and I'm glad I did. I wanted to know how these people ended up. I don't think I'd necessarily recommend this book to anyone, but I wouldn't urge anyone to NOT read it either.

This is a lovely book. I could not put it down. I loved the interplay of character and learning how each lived and made a living in New York, and in the Korean-American community. The author did a wonderful job depicting her characters and their relationships. I highly recommend this book.

Starts out engagingly enough, as others have said, but it doesn't really go anywhere. I liked the book in spite of the fact that well-to-do yuppies with expensive, conspicuous consumption habits aren't the most likable people in the world, and the ones in this book are not even the most likable of that batch. The immigrant parents are reprehensible at best, violent, narrow-minded, cruel to their children and to less rich parents. Everyone, without exception, swallows whole the creed of money. So, that's what it is, a modern Korean-Am Great Gatsby without the charm, the interesting narrator, or the plot. There's really no plot, just Casey does this, somebody else does that. The author has a habit of jumping in and out of other characters' points of view. This is distracting and something a good editor might have eliminated, but nobody seems to get good editing any more, so there is a lot of jumping around and explaining why people think the way they do. Maybe it's a good thing, since the intricacies of people's cultures are not always transparent. The book is interesting, but not that satisfying. I started skimming the last third. It was much too long for a book without the momentum of plot. I will say that the character Sabine reminded me of a woman a friend of mine used to work for. The characters seem true to life.

[Note: I would have given this review 3 1/2 stars, if 1/2 stars were available. But I give books I really like a lot 4 stars -- 5 stars only if they're absolutely superb -- and I just didn't feel it with this one.]

As a 30-something reader, I enjoyed picking up a book by a writer who is more or less from my generation. If I'm not mistaken, this is Min Jin Lee's first novel, and it is not a bad attempt. The totally omniscient third-person was a little jarring at first, but in the end it provided a depth I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have achieved otherwise. The story was interesting enough -- primarily, the struggles of a young Korean-American woman in New York City -- but the prose was a little predictable and some of the characters were a little superficial. In the end I had very little sympathy for the main character, Casey (oh, poor baby spends her six-figure paycheck, oh poor baby has men falling all over her, oh poor baby her Ivy League friends are all rich). But I enjoyed the glimpses of Korean culture and I was glad that the female characters were more well-rounded than the male characters -- which is hard to find, even with female authors.

For the ending, I was expecting a little more of a denouement (not because I like a neatly wrapped ending, but because the first-novel style really suggested itself to it). A lot of little loose ends were left dangling.

I picked up this book from my local library based on all the great press it had received. After finishing the book, my reaction is that the praise is only somewhat deserved.

I had been looking forward to reading this book -- not only because of the acclaim, but because the author and her characters come from a background like my own -- high-achieving immigrants who had gone on to successful professional lives in New York.

Yet, just fifty pages in, I wanted to put it down. I had to force myself to read. The dialogue, especially the passages between the protagonist and her sister, and the protagonist and her friends, is so precious it's brutally painful -- a sort of artificial, too-smart-for-it's-own-good witty banter. I found myself grimacing while reading.

But that wasn't the only problem. The author also indulges in these tedious passages of exposition -- indeed, as one critic wrote, too much tell, too little show. The book is 600 pages -- it could surely have been edited down to half.

As a testament to how unnecessary the exposition is though, and as a boon for me as a reader, I was able to skim pretty quickly and get into the plot and characters. I started to enjoy the experience, and read on. To be fair, this may be because the world and the characters in the book are so familiar to me, and because the author weaves a heck of a soap opera of a story -- lots of sex and intrigue.

Following the trend of excess though, the author even takes the soap opera too far, with infidelity not only plaguing the protagonist, but nearly every other character in the book -- not just her immediate friends. If it's not a theme, it's almost a parody.

The book also deals a lot with internal struggles and external appearances -- maybe the "society novel" angle is what appealed so much to critics. I couldn't help but at times think the "witty" banter, the peek into rarefied worlds was a bit of fantasy fulfillment for the author. Fans of Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, this book may be for you.

There are also strong themes of materialism and desperation for power running through the plot, with very little laugh-out-loud humor. It's interesting that the author was able to capture my attention with characters that are in general, pretty unlikeable. I enjoyed reading about these characters, and the author constructs a decent ending, but I didn't leave the story wondering about the protagonist or hoping to one day learn more about her future.

A final bit of acknowledgement for the novel -- in last 20 years, there have been some widely very successful books about Asians, usually written from a female perspective and purporting to give an "insider's view" of the culture. Think Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" and Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha." Many of them just stank of exoticism. This one is also has that cultural sampler feel, but for all its faults, is more familiar to me, and trades less on that exoticism.

I feel both connected to the characters and distant from them. For the most part, I don't think the way they do, and their lifestyles and behaviors are worlds apart from my own. And yet, I found numerous passages, scattered throughout the book, to which I related completely. I had very strong responses to some of these sections. One even made me quite angry - a fun and unexpected emotion to experience in response to a character's behaviors! So, while I had reason to feel distanced and disconnected, I also found numerous good reasons to feel connected to the characters, as well.

Reading this book, I sometimes felt like a stone skipped across a lake, skimming the surface, but sometimes making contact.

Still, the author let her characters live such rich, mental lives that I think it would be impossible not to connect. I haven't read many books that plunge into so many characters' thoughts and emotions to such a degree.

That said, the writing, itself, was not stunning, and I'd be hard pressed to give a brief explanation of the book's plot. Neither of these complaints troubled me much, but, combined with the distance I sometimes felt from the characters, they warrant a four-star rating rather than a five.

Very worth reading! Such rich characters!

This book is quite lengthy, but overall captivating to say the least. It seemed like for a step backward for every 3 steps forward. Casey Han, the flawed protagonist, is so stubborn and yet so human. I had an epiphany as I was finishing up the book that horrid [her lack of] communication skills was attributed to our Asian culture and parents who never really "communicate" as westerners do on a daily basis. As I was reading, I kept wanting to slap her and say why are you so stubborn and prideful??? And yet, as I take a look at societal expectations and grievances from both a Western and Asian American perspective, I had to swallow my "shoulds" and accept what "is."

As for the novel itself, I can't believe this is the author's first. No character was neglected, however minor or irrelevant they may seem. She really connected all the dots instead of just throwing them out there.

This is the story of Casey, daughter of first generation Korean immigrants living in New York. Casey comes from a poor background but has struggled all her life to fit within the "upper class". She is stubborn and proud, and throughout the book we see how she has to make choices between being true to herself and remaining stubborn or letting down her guard and accepting help, even though this might go against her belief that people should be self sufficient.

This story touches on a lot of subjects: love, friendship, family values and relationships, immigrants, class, money. All of the people around Casey including herself go through life changing experiences where they have to make choices about who they really are, what they really want and what they are willing to sacrifice to move on. They also deal with the expectations placed on them by their friends, envrionments or themselves. By following the intertwined stories of the people around Casey - her mother, her sister, best friends, we see that people are only human afterall and that by desperately clinging to what feels "normal" you might be missing out on a fuller life. Highly Recommended.

At 22, Casey Han, Princeton graduate, has learned out to hobnob successfully with the rich and dress like a million dollars. But her Korean parents manage a laundry, and their old world values make it pretty uncomfortable to live at home while looking for work after graduation. Her heavy smoking and her white American boyfriend have to be kept secret.

The book paints a vivid picture of Christian Korean culture in America. When people enter a house, for example, they pray in thanksgiving before socializing. However, extramarital sex and divorce seem to thrive in this religious atmosphere. Casey, too, goes to church and reads the bible - but it doesn't have much of an impact on her actions.

The plot follows Casey's love affairs and her search for a profession, as well as the romantic troubles of her friends and family.

I was seduced by the non-stop drama in the first half of the book, but at some point in the 560 pages things bogged down. Too much trivial content. Too much philosophizing about feelings.

I suppose I'm glad I read the book for its view of a world unknown to me, but I wish it could have been more literary and less of a soap opera.

Didn't care for this book AT ALL. The dialogue was clunky and awkward. The main character was not only unsympathetic, she was difficult to connect with on any level. Additionally, there were problems with the writing such as the random shifting of points of view. It did get better as it went along, but if you don't engage the reader within the first 150 pages, you've lost them.

Min Jin Lee's first novel is a wonder to sink intoæand be warned, once you start, it'll be hard to stop until you're done with this dense, richly told story of interweaving characters trying to find themselves in the supposed melting pot that is New York. Starting with fresh-out-of-college Casey Han, we meet the first of many who are struggling to figure out their place in the world. In Casey's case, this starts with her place in her family, and for talking back to her Korean father, she gets a slap across the face that catapults her out of the warmth of her family and into the world, learning the hard way about love, betrayal, jobs, Wall Street, and fidelity. The slapping scene seems to tilt around the room as Lee shows us each person's wishes as they unfold, making what could seem a horrific act one much more understandable. In Lee's hands, each character, no matter how small, gets to have their say, their slice of life, their point of view explained.

It's to Lee's credit that she, as the storyteller, doesn't judge, but lets the reader draw their own conclusions about the values and choices each character makes. From Casey's traditional parents (even though we find out what lurks beneath their quiet mannerisms) to her gambler boyfriend and horny but likable boss, Lee paints a world where right and wrong blend and blur, stripping down these characters' lives until it's clear just how complex their inner turmoil and joy really are. While certain plotlines had me racing to get to their next installment (specifically, herpes-afflicted good girl Ella Shim as she emerges from her shell, becomes a mom, gets divorced, falls in love, and learns to stand up for herself), every strand here is woven so succinctly, everyone's actions dissected from varying viewpoints, that together they made the 500+ pages go by so quickly and made me want to know what happens next.

Lee's descriptions are rich and vivid, from fancy gold courses to the interiors of a dry cleaner and Korean church, and by "interiors," I mean both the places, and the minds of the people who inhabit them. This is the kind of novel that sucks you in and doesn't let you out until you turn the last page, and even then, you'll want to know what decisions Casey and her friends and family will make (I for one would love to read a sequel, though the book is complete on its own). Lee isn't here to give us a moral lesson, but to point to the flaws we all have and share a gripping story with very human drama that needs no fanciful embellishment to be very, very real.

Free Food for Millionaires is a coming of age novel by prize-winning author Min Jin Lee. It follows the main character, Casey, from her posh college graduation through her uncertainty about what to do with the rest of her life. She struggles throughout the book to reconcile her conservative Korean-American upbringing with feminism and her own desires to break out of proscribed roles.

I found this book very challenging due to both its unconventional narrative style and its flighty, difficult to like protagonist. Although the main character is Casey, the author will often jump inside other character's heads to give you their perspective and stories from their own pasts. Sometimes this works great, as when you jump into Casey's father's head to witness his terrible memories from his childhood in Korea just before he commits an act of domestic violence in the present day. These flashbacks deepen the story and made me more curious about the characters, as well as adding a layer of sadness because the reader can see how often the drama in the story comes from the characters' misunderstanding of each other. But sometimes these "story microbursts" slow down the book when they are from the point of view of very minor characters. The book is already long (560 pages), and seeing things from so many viewpoints takes away from the momentum of Casey's story.

And then there's Casey herself. Here is where I think the author did a very interesting thing in creating a character who is both fascinating to follow and completely infuriating. She will constantly make you analyze both her ideas, especially towards feminism, and your own. Sometimes Casey's feminism seems to consist of, "Let's max out our MasterCards at Bloomie's and then all go get abortions!" or "I like shopping so I'm a feminist rebel!" or "I'm sexually liberated, unlike my silly goose sister who wants to follow her dumb old religion, but my own boyfriend still boinks co-eds two at a time!" Casey is conflicted, and this book certainly throws enough drama her way, but at times I wanted to bang my head against a wall while reading her interior monologues. Still, I was glad that this wasn't just a sugar-coated story, and the characters do have multifaceted discussions about marriage, careers and class issues. It may not be love at first sight with Casey, but you'll want to follow her to the end to see how it all turns out.

Free Food for Millionaires, by Min Jin Lee, 4+

Casey Han had a scholarship to Princeton; otherwise, she'd have been unable to attend. Her time at Princeton gave her "No job and many bad habits," and a hunger for a lifestyle far above that which she could afford or had been used to with her immigrant Korean parents who ran a laundry service in Manhattan. Through Casey's eye's we see New York as experienced by the poor and the rich. Casey is offered several divergent opportunities and has to choose between independence or indebtedness in different ways. She loves hats, clothes and shoes, and these get her into trouble. This richly textured narrative covers not only Casey's life, but the lives of her parents, friends and lovers, and all the complex interweaving of love, friendship, betrayal, heartbreak, and rekindling. This book that made me laugh and cry. It's touted as being about the "immigrant" experience, but I say it is about the HUMAN experience.. An excellent book. Close to a 5 in my mind. I really enjoyed it.

Free Food for Millionaires is like a reprise on the movie Slacker, only set in the NYC finance world. The author knows how to write, how to set a scene, and how to tell a story. It's just that she doesn't have anything to say. The reader gets to watch the main character named Casey stumble through life without any direction or goals. The book starts out with Casey having graduated from Princeton and being accepted at Columbia Law. But she doesn't want to go to law school or get a job. Why? Who knows? She's just not excited about either one. What does she want to do? No one knows. We then see her bounce around from job to job, in and out of business school. But still without goals or a plan. No internal thoughts or outward direction about a job, career, or interests. Her other quality is throwing away all the abilities she has along with the plethora of chances that come along. She's smart (with awesome grades), well-spoken, attractive, a hard worker (when she has a job), has lots of contacts, and is even a naturally good golfer. She went to Princeton on a scholarship, gets accepted at law and business schools, has one boss who will pay for school and wants to hand over a high-end store to her, and she has other contacts who will help her get set up in the world of finance. And she turns almost all of it down. Not interested.

She spends almost all the book crashing in other people's apartments because she can't afford one of her own, and she still racks up credit card debt and never has any money. She dumps her fiance because she can't envision a picture of them together (an allusion to an underexplained neo-mystical ability she has that is used for this one excuse and never referenced again), and then spends the rest of the time with a guy whose life is also messed up. In fact, almost all the characters have messed-up lives; it's like a soap opera where no one can really go very long without some serious drama. Everyone keeps losing their jobs, losing money, and cheating on their spouse or partner, including Casey. Someone gets date-raped near the end of the book, in an unreadable passage that I skipped before any of it could sink into my long-term memory.

The Asian-American theme is played out, but it's not omnipresent. The greater culture clash for Casey is rich versus poor, since she comes from poor immigrant roots but lives in the world of high finance. If there is anything she is indeed interested in, it's money and the stuff it buys (mainly clothes). Casey learns that Harvard business school is better than NYU, not because of the education, but because of the name. Ditto with jobs at certain companies, and of course the labels on clothes. Her conflict comes not because she wants to merely join the world of the rich but because she can't deal with not having been part of it all along when all her friends have, and because she can't deal with being an outsider on any level of it. That would be a worthy theme to explore in a novel, but instead we get to slog through 500 pages of soap opera drama gimmicks. The barest glimmer of a possible happy ending we finally get isn't any sort of a wrap-up; it has the effect of a TV series that was finally canceled.

I have become a very picky reader. Lately half the stuff I pick up I either don't finish or I merely skim to get the gist of what is going to happen to the characters. End blurbs and author promotions just can't make a book a sustainable read. FFM was such a pleasurable change. It is a book that is a little hard to get into, what with its scattered range of characters, but once you do, you find that most of them are people. I got to caring about the people, even our somewhat hard, rather unlikeable main person, Casey Han. The slant on the immigrant experience of the Korean families added some interesting background about another culture, but did so without being so different as to be inaccessible. In fact, the Korean experience mirrors those of so many other immigrant experiences (such as that in my own family): the parents and their worries about their children, their children and their difficulty in being both of another ethnicity and American. It's familiar enough territory that all of us can explore it.

Yes, in parts you wonder why the author is covering details so heavily, such as Casey's debts. And I don't personally feel all that much draw to the financial world. But basically it's a good story, well told, and you do come to care, even about Casey. It's the best book I've picked up in months. Read it with an open mind, at least at first, until it grabs you and you have to give up the other two books your were trying to read at the same time.

"Free Food for Millionaires" by Min Jin Lee centered around Casey, a twenty-two year old who just graduated from Princeton and had just been kicked out of her parents' apartment over a disagreement with her dad. Casey was raised in a traditional Korean family and unlike her rich friends, she grew up poor. With no money, Casey had to move in with her childhood friend, Ella who unlike Casey was the daughter in the sense that she was not abrasive, polite, and basically a nice person. Unable to secure a job, she had to work in a departmental store owned by her friend/mentor, Sabine. Like many newly grads, Casey had to decide what she wants in life as she struggled with her finances. Casey had to wrestle with issues of career, love, and friendship.

This was a great read as the writing was clear, concise, and very engaging. The author was able to draw out her characters very well and readers were able to learn about the characters strengths and weaknesses. The characters were likeable, especially, Casey in spite of all her flaws. I also like that the author was able to provide different perspectives in addition to the main character's. She was able to illustrate the complexities of relationships - between friends, family members, and significant others. This was a wonderful read and I am looking forward to Min Jin Lee's next novel.

After graduating from Princeton, Casey Han expects to get rich by working on Wall Street. She does have an expensive clothing habit, after all. Reality sucker punches her when she's kicked out of her conservative Korean parents' apartment only to find her long-term boyfriend in a compromising position when she goes to him for help.

Adrift in the hustle and bustle of New York City's fast life, Casey racks up her bills and tries to keep up appearances while trying to find her way in life. Work, school, money, and relationships are issues Casey must face if she is to discover the path to happiness. The trouble is, she doesn't know if happiness, let alone true love, is possible.

If Casey can figure out the priorities in her life, she might have a shot at the good life. Isn't that what's expected of a grown immigrant child?

There's a lot going on in this novel, and Casey is at the center of it. Author Min Jin Lee takes a hard look at what it's like to survive in the concrete jungle as the child of Korean immigrants and with conflicting expectations: load up on material goods and have lots of fun, or be successful, and don't disappoint your family. Casey is a character who breaks her family's rules with abandon and shame.

The story has a lot to recommend it, but the author's use of the omniscient point of view makes it difficult for readers to know which character is thinking what. From one paragraph to another (and sometimes within the same paragraph), the narrative bounces from one character's perspective to another in a phenomenon called "head-hopping." To further complicate the reading, there are numerous flashbacks that can pull the reader out of the story in order to decide when and where the narrative is taking place. Is the scene playing out now, or is it a memory? This can be very confusing to follow.

Casey's journey is difficult and ultimately important. Unfortunately, the author tends to "head hop" and overuse flashbacks, which makes a potentially superb novel difficult to read.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
06/28/2007

I chose this because i reaf and loved her second book. At first i was dissappointed d that it didn't have a Hollywood ending" and then quickly realized that's one of the things i liked the most. As many of us i have been conditioned to expect that tupe of ending. She's a gifted story teller.

I don't know a single Korean woman. This matters. The only thing I know of Korean American culture is bound in the 600+ pages of this book.

I love that the author gave us a bit of everyone. The protagonist is completely unlikeable and deeply flawed. In any other book I would say that this is the problem with the book but here I liked it, loved it even.

This book is 5 stars of entertainment. I found the story to be totally engrossing and the characters were painfully familiar to the characters in my own life. Min Jin Lee's voice is amazing. I think I'd enjoy her telling of Aesop's Fables. This book is proof for me that the journey is as important as the destination.

This was a part of our book club reading and with all the different women represented I'm sure that the discussion this month will be very interesting.

The new Great American Novel. As finely layered and complex as the best 19th-century Russian prose, but with a heroine and setting completely American. Casey Han and the concentric circles of her family and acquaintances struggle to understand love and their own passions. The author beautifully and sensitively portrays every character, even those who make terrible choices, with a sympathetic eye. They all are consumed by the work of reconciling expectations with reality - a particularly American problem given everyone's wish to live the ill-defined "American dream."

I thought overall Lee is a pretty good writer, and enough happened with the plot that I wasn't too bored. However, sometimes I felt that she relied on stereotypes of certain characters. As you can see from the other reviews, I'm not the only one who observed this. Because the character development is based on stereotypes, it became somewhat two dimensional and lacking. I thought that many of the characters were pretty superficial, including Casey. The author seemed to obsess about making sure that we knew where practically each character went to high school and college and had this rigid view of public v. private education. Based upon where the character went to school and where he or she grew up, he or she was pretty much type-cast. Maybe it's not her fault and it's just a reflection of NY society? However, if you want to read one person's depictions about what Korean American immigrant life in NY is like, I'd recommend it.

Many reviews I have read seem to slam this book on different levels. I ordered this book before reading them, then was apprehensive about my purchase after I received the book. The book is nearly 600 pages long, I have a busy life and read only when I can. Did I want to spend any precious time on this based on what was written about it?

The answer is "yes." Min Jin Lee is able to take a sole character and open the door to her life and to those of the other characters in this book. She masterfully tells separate tales of each person, while keeping them connected to each other. Each storyline is as captivating as the next, yet very different. However, there is a common thread that runs through them all keeping the story cohesive.

If you are of Asian descent in any way and were raised even half way in the traditional Asian culture (specifically Korean, as I am), you will follow the story and truly understand why things happen the way they do. You will be able to truly appreciate the drama and pain, joy, indecisiveness, ups, downs, and tragedies of the various characters. I could understand this book in ways that my peers could not because I was raised in the Korean culture, and because I am American, too. It flows really well when you truly get the demands and pressures put upon you by traditions. I understood Casey Han and her family. I understood Unu. I understood Ella. I even understood Ella's awful husband Ted and Sabine Gottesman.

The reviews I've read said that Ms. Lee "Asian male bashes", but she does not. In my opinion, she paints a picture of the good and bad in men and women both. Everyone in this book is not perfect in any way - women especially. In Korean culture, the outward appearance of success and prestige is ever important, though what is real is hardly ever what it seems. Koreans are proud people, and the need to show status and prominence can be overwhelming, even painful. Ms. Lee captures that reality in every character.

As for the end, many have written that too many loose ends are left dangling. I find that to be incorrect, too. If you see a movie and days after find yourself wondering what could happen if the movie continued, then the piece is called "thought provoking". I found myself wondering about the fictional characters in this book long after I had finished it. There is a saying that "America likes a happy ending", and in this book, depending on your interpretation and understanding of the characters, you will decide if it is or not. I found it to be perfect.

I also do not agree that the book loses steam in any way. It's as riveting from page 500 to the end as it is from page 1 to 499. Don't let that statement discourage you from reading this book!

I will say that the only thing that grew tedious was the constant descriptive details of everything. They seemed overdone, and excessive in many places. I do enjoy scenic details - most times it helps to let your mind imagine you are there, too. However I feel that there's too much too often in places where it's not necessary, which can disrupt the flow of the story. This is where I can see and understand why others may have thought the book dragged. I don't completely disagree with that statement with regards to this element.

Don't let the other reviews discourage you from reading this book. Ms. Lee is a wonderful story teller. I look forward to her next book.

An unusual novel, which stayed with me even though I read it back in 2007...
The scene with the main character and the conductor (not to do too much of a spoiler) is a masterpiece.
The book makes for an intelligent, engaging and highly enjoyable reading experience.

Casey could have been a great character that represents the complexities of a person constantaly faced with cultural,sociological, intellectual ambiguities in her life. My main interest in this book was to watch a bright and yet very young and inexperienced woman to eventually find her own place of her own interpretations of her crazy life. The author has realistic characters in this book that probably represent different faces of Korean-American culture, but unfortunately, their decisions and behaviors often look rather incongruent to their characters and not believable at all. The writing is very undisciplined, too busy and unnecessarily long and lacks depth ultimately disappointing.

In Queens, her Korean born father Joseph thinks it is time for his Americanized twenty two years old daughter Casey Han, a recent Princeton graduate, to find a job while also demanding she follow the old country tradition. In anger, because of her disrespect for him, he slaps her and kicks Casey out of the house. With her economics degree in hand and her affluent upper crust lifestyle, Casey goes to her boyfriend's apartment, but he is to busy with a ménage de trois. She moves into Manhattan's Carlyle Hotel although she will have problems paying off the credit card tab that she runs up there.

However, the recent graduate's luck changes when she meets old friend Ella Shim. Ella allows Casey to move in with her while her fiancé manages to get her work at his investment firm in which the pay stinks and the abuse rolls downhill into the ooze beneath the food chain plopping onto her. Casey also dates Ella's cousin Unu.

This is a terrific look at the American melting pot that assimilates second generations so much so that the gap between them and the immigration generation is wider than the Pacific Ocean. The story line is first rate when Casey is front and center even as she deals with stereotypical characters like her father and her friends. When the plot turns towards making its anecdotal premise into a sweeping generalization by enabling the audience to see inside the heads of much of the ensemble the assertion feels forced and loses steam. Still readers will enjoy this strong character study especially when Min Jin Lee focuses on the Americanization of Casey.

Harriet Klausner

I picked up this book in a bookstore and almost left it because of the title. However, after reading a page or two, I couldn't wait to get home and read. I read the book in two days, however, I felt cheated in the end. The book goes on and on (almost 600 pages), yet doesn't end with any satisfying or otherwise conclusion. I felt as if I were watching someone's life unfold and stopping in the middle.

I did enjoy reading about the Korean POV in generations. I like the author's style. However, the protagonist was screechy and annoying for the most part. I was disappointed in the end.

I was drawn by the book's title: What could such a book be about? I was surprised by the message in mostly good ways.

Ms. Lee has succeeded in creating a new way of looking at the immigrant experience, and her novel will cause you to rethink many assumptions you have made about others. You'll also have a more jaundiced view of where American society is headed: a warning call about the dangers of heedless ambition, greed, and sexual immorality that many will agree is needed.

The traditional American immigrant novel usually followed this plot: Poor people barely make it to America, work hard, sacrifice, send their children to school; the children succeed; and the family prospers while adhering to good values. The contrast between the wider world the children experience and what the parents perceive usually makes for some interesting reading.

Readers enter the Han family at a defining moment of the immigrant success path: The older daughter, Casey, has just graduated from Princeton where she did well. Where we expect success and happiness from the story to follow, failure lurks. Casey doesn't plan to go on to graduate school, even though she was admitted to Columbia Law School. She only applied for one permanent job and didn't get it. But she can always continue to sell hats for peanuts in the upscale department store where she's worked part-time for years.

What's the problem? "As a capable young woman, Casey Han felt compelled to choose respectability and success. But it was glamour and insight that she craved." While earning this success, Casey found the frivolous life that her fellow students lived called out eloquently to her. But those are rich people, and she is not. Her Korean parents work at a Manhattan dry cleaner from which they never take a day off. What's the right path for someone like Casey?

Naturally, her father wants to get Casey on a stable path. Casey doesn't want to submit, and she's told to leave after a violent confrontation. No problem. She'll just take her cigarettes and live with her wealthy boy friend. Uh, oh! He's been picked up by two college girls looking for a fling, and Casey walks in on the threesome.

Now, what will she do?

The story plays out over the next four years as Casey tries out life on her own terms. Grudgingly, she realizes that as a woman without means she will have to be supported financially by someone. She is disappointed to find that few people want to help without any strings attached. While she has always sought acceptance in the nonKorean world, she's happily surprised to find that Koreans (even ones she doesn't like) can be her best supporters.

How will she earn a living? What she's good at doing can earn her a high income . . . but she doesn't like it. What she likes to do doesn't pay well at all. What to choose?

In the meantime, she pretends to be wealthy and spends lavishly on clothes she can't afford. Her debts mount up . . . as does her sense of futility.

The novel's main point is that no one can be trusted when it comes to sexual and material temptations, including yourself.

Where should you go from that pessimistic view of our sinful nature? Ms. Lee's plot suggests that faith in your religion isn't enough to protect you. Those without religion, however, have worse lapses than the religious.

The book's end will leave you with a sense that you need to listen more carefully to the individual's cry: Do your own thing. But you knew that already.

What will intrigue you about this book is to realize how much pain you can cause yourself by resisting what comes naturally. One of my favorite scenes in the book has a very hungry Casey interviewing for a support job at an investment bank. She wants to pretend she has no needs and eats almost nothing at a buffet of free food while many millionaire brokers gorge themselves. Casey can't compromise with her self-image, even if the self-image isn't based in reality.

Unlike many novels that either don't develop the characters or only develop them once, Ms. Lee develops many of her characters along multiple dimensions through the temptations and adversity they face. That makes for a more compelling read. But it also presents a problem for readers: You need to want to go through all of that development. For me, I would have been satisfied with 200 pages less. Although the book never totally bogged down, it doesn't have the zing of a book that focuses just on the key turning points of the story.

I'm also not sure the story started in the right place. Casey didn't ever make sense to me. Perhaps if there had been 25 pages in the beginning about her life at Princeton I would have understood her conflicted character better. For example, she's a spendthrift, but she doesn't start to act that way until after she graduates. A real spendthrift would have had a credit card earlier and run up the retail debt sooner. Someone who was totally committed to high living would have been interviewing at every high paying employer who came to Princeton. Someone who wanted a year off to make up her mind would have applied for a traveling fellowship that paid all of her expenses. Perhaps Ms. Lee intended to portray Casey as depressed, but surely Casey would have made it to the school infirmary and gotten medicine for that?

Those who like serious literature will be thrilled by the layering of themes and references that a less skilled writer would have left out. But you'll have to deal with the extended length to gain that pleasure. Casey wouldn't have bothered. She would have reread a favorite book instead.

I loved the first half of the book. It had direction, wit, suspense, and the beginnings of a naive protagonist who I figured would grow and evolve into someone who would actually make use of her enormous potential to do SOMETHING.

It was very frustrating to read the latter half of the book. In a way, it was too realistic. Example: Casey's encounter with her father, Joseph. That conflict was never really resolved nor addressed in the latter half- an element of reality that is overshadowed by happy endings and hugs&tears in storybooks and movies. In this book, the ending brought no closure, and offered little insight as to where the central protagonist was headed. It was very disappointing.

Looking at some of the other reviews, I'm surprised at the comments criticizing the author's writing (which I thought was superb). Ms. Lee has potential and I hope that she, unlike Casey Han, is able to deliver a story worthy of her descriptive eye and writing talent later on in her career.

I'm in love with this novel for many reasons.

As a novelist, I could appreciate Min Jin Lee's uncommon clarity of personal voice, the exceptionally well constructed dialogues, the authenticity of each character, the marvelous plot.

Shakespeare comes to mind as my favorite comparison. I'm not kidding. He really loved his characters, always saw their full point of view (crazy or not), and that is the most striking stylistic quality of this fictional work. You can't find a single character, major or minor, who isn't fully conceptualized, consistent, and presented in a balanced way. Min Jin Lee has found a way to love everyone of those characters, a huge feat of compassion.

My perspective also is that of an East-meets-West person. I'm due to go to Japan in a month, making my eighth trip, teaching students and doing personal sessions. Based in America, I often have Asian-American clients for my sessions, especially first- or second-generation Asian-Americans.

On the surface it doesn't make much sense why this would be one of my specialties for emotional and spiritual healing, except that I just was born with an Eastern sensibility this lifetime around. And maybe it helps that I am first-generation American on my father's side and second-generation on my mother's.

In any case, my clients continue to educate me about the pain and the privilege of expanding the personal self to comprise the best of both worlds, the quest for self-expression and independence plus the deep honoring of family and a completely different figure-ground relationship where each person is PART of the picture, rather than the only thing that matters in that picture.

The depiction of these struggles resonates deeply for me as a healer.

From the witty title on the cover all the way to the final cadences, FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES held my full attention, earning my greatest respect.

Rose Rosetree
Author, "The Roar of the Huntids" and "Empowered by Empathy"

Korean American characters, dry cleaners, Ivy league graduates, doctors, Wall street analysts. With 500+ pages, I expected to feel more for at least one of the characters.

With the protagonist, Casey, Princeton grad who has no idea what to do with her life, surrounded by what she thinks of as poverty, and what she resents as privilege, you have the elements for some soul searching, some biting social critique, something rich and poignant about a community.

Instead, the book feels too self-conscious, too embarrassed, and certainly too aloof, that while I finished it, curious to find what happened to everyone, I couldn't bring myself to feel much for the characters, who left almost no emotional hooks in this reader.

I don't usually stick with books that seem to be going nowhere half way into them, but for some reason this one made me want to finish. Which I did. I think it was because I couldn't imagine that such a "popular" book wouldn't do itself justice in the end. But I was wrong. This story was so frustrating and left me so unsatisfied that I had to write about it. Casey Han was such a strangely written character, full of potential but constantly making bad decisions. I agree with another reviewer that she was a bit of a cold fish. She was so unsure of herself that it became annoying and even at the end, she didn't come to any kind of real decision about her future. Many of the characters and story lines in the book, and there were far too many, were pointless and drifted away at the end.
Not an awful book, but personally I didn't enjoy it.

Thank you, Min Jin Lee, for writing this book. I was thoroughly fascinated by how flawlessly the author plucks you into the minds of each colorful, complex and beautifully-written character, making it impossible to put the book down. Casey Han is someone we all know, and can all relate to in one way or another-- prideful, fickle, neurotic, capable, and above all, enduring. At times you want to give her a big hug; others, you hate her for not realizing her talents & potential. The symbolism of hats to "crowns" adds a rich, lasting layer to this delicious treat.

As a Korean American 20-something, I've never before felt so connected to characters in a novel-- I greedily devoured the book and didn't want the story to end. It made me smile each time something felt familiar-- whether it's trying to communicate with my own immigrant, very-Christian parents, or the experiences I've had with the elusive dating pool in NYC, Lee puts on paper (in a very precise, intelligent way, nonetheless) the things we know and feel but rarely able to acknowledge.

Casey Han, daughter of Korean immigrants, spent four years at Princeton and came out with `a refined diction, an enviable golf handicap, a popular white boyfriend, an agnostic's closeted passion for reading the Bible, and a magna cum laude degree in economics. But no job and a number of bad habits.'

Over the next few years, as Casey struggled to get herself out of debt while unwilling to give up living the high life in Manhattan, we learned of her life and the lives of those around her. Centered around the Korean community in New York City, this is the tale of the haves and have-nots, all in pursuit of the American dream.

Lee did a wonderful job portraying the clash of values between immigrant parents and their assimilated children. The vivid depiction of various characters and the seamless shift from one character's point of view to another were also quite impressive. Being a Chinese emigrant to North America and having grown up in a world where going to a `brand name school' helps open doors of opportunity, I often felt that Lee was writing about someone I know personally.

It was also frustrating to see that the smart people who are bright enough to receive scholarships from Princeton, finish business school at Harvard or gain acceptance into Columbia Law School, can still fail as a human being and make stupid and unbelievable mistakes and decisions.

Curious about the title? Apparently traders buy each other meals when their group made the most money that day or that week--so basically they got all excited about the free lunches they get when they are rolling in money already.

However, regardless of how real many of those characters may seem, this book reads more like a Chinese or Korean soap opera (which I often enjoy) than an epic novel. The stories of the individual characters were interesting and entertaining enough, but the entire book lacked a central plot. This maybe is a good book to read for one to gain some insight about the Korean immigrant community (and some issues apply to the Chinese community too), but it was not the page-turning epic that I was expecting.

Author Min Jin Lee went to Yale College where she was awarded both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Veech Prize for Fiction. She then attended Georgetown Law School and worked as a lawyer for several years before leaving to write full time.

Armchair Interviews says: Heed the reviewer's comments to understand what kind of story this book unravels.

I got 400 or so pages into it and just found it too long. I felt like it wasn't really going anywhere, and character after character was getting introduced without holding my interest too well.

It's a shame because I think it had potential to be great. Then about half way through I found myself skimming and then skipping entire pages. Last night I just closed it and set it down with a sigh of irritation. I really think that it would be great if she weeded out about 100-200 pages. It moved too slowly for me.

Having NPR included it on a "must read" list I was eager to get my hands on this nearly 600 page tome. I tried, honestly I did, to find some redeeming qualities in the characters and writing. Casey and most of the supporting cast are self-indulgent, addicted to either shopping, smoking, gambling, sex (and not in a good way) or simply wasting their lives and complaining about it. The writing was dull, the narrative over-long and tedious. The chapter titles promised to reveal some lesson learned or goal achieved, but at the end of each I had to turn back to the title page and still didn't get the connection. Casey and her mentor, Sabine are matertialstic control freaks and use one another for self-gratification. The characters lack maturity, values and respect. Except for leaving mismatched relationships, time after time, not one of the characters "changes" in order to fulfill the premise of novel writing.

Half way through, I gave up and flipped to the last few pages. I never found out what happened to Casey's Princeton classmate, Virginia, who took off for Italy at the beginning of the book. I hope she found success and happiness far from the bad influence of her former classmate!

While reading this book, it did not occur to me that it was 560 pages long. All I knew was that I needed to finish it so I could find out what happened to the characters.

I found the characters to be complex and flawed but likable at the same time. There were times when I felt empathy for them. The characters seemed to have a reason why they behaved in their flawed ways and as a reader, you discover this in due time.

The story has many ups and downs, nuances and subtleties...much like life itself. While Casey is the main character in the book, I found the actions of the other characters in her life to to be more interesting and surprising - especially those of Leah, Unu, and Ted.

I did not think the author was bashing Korean or Caucasian men. I think she wanted show that the characters all had desires and some repressed it while others tried their best to attain their desires. The common theme in the book was that everyone has desires.

This book is well worth the read.

I liked the book a lot and couldn't put it down. I don't think it was perpetuating any stereotypes about Asians like other reviewers. It covered a number of lives and read like I was watching a TV series. A lot of point of views from the different characters were included and it was like knowing everything that was going on in the room. It showed that even the most ideal situations that seemed great on paper and what most people would view as success stories, never really turn out that way. I would and have recommend this book to my friends.

i am not a reader who usually abandon a book after reading it more than halfway through. but this book just annoys me so much that i have to give it up. the writing style is so amateurish that i have to wonder about the editor's role in it. pages upon pages are spent giving point by point descriptions of events that led nowhere. i know it's the author's debut novel so i can only hope for better the next time around.

The first 150 pages were good. The entire story is written in a style that is easy and fast to read. In the first 150 pages I thought that the character development would lead to something. However, it didn't. There really is no plot. And though the characters are fully developed I was left wondering why I should care about any of them. None of the characters are interesting or insightful. They're just normal people with normal problems. If I wanted to read about normal problems of a woman in her twenties struggling with figuring out what she wants to do with her life I'd read my journals. Reading Free Food For Millionaires is like watching a reality TV show about normal people - it's boring. Lee writes about mundane details of the character's lives from the perspective of every boring character. It's overkill and it's uninteresting. Furthermore, she switches perspective constantly and without warning. The book could have been 200 pages shorter and possibly more interesting if she had stuck to a single perspective. The abrupt changes in perspective show a lack of editing, as do the type-os that are frankly inexcusable in a second edition of a book.

Min Jin Lee's Free Food for Millionaires is a remarkable book. It is both incredibly compelling as storytelling-- I couldn't put it down--and it has layers upon layers of metaphor, cultural commentary and literary references (from Dante to the Bible) for those who want to look deeper. Any English professor (or book club leader) looking for literature that will inspire endless analysis--while entertaining readers with plenty of sex, humor and intrigue--need look no further. I was left hoping for a sequel. The characters are so colorfully and richly drawn that they come alive. The reader becomes completely invested in them and can't help but want to know about their futures. I know the Ivy League/Wall Street world she describes, and she captures it to perfection. While I generally prefer books to film or TV adaptations, this is tailor-made for an HBO series, and it would be brilliant.

I must admit I am flummoxed by the comment of the reviewer who pegs the book for materialistic 20-somethings. As a professional in my 40s, it was clear to me that Ms. Lee's use of fashion, possessions and status was literary metaphor. Free Food for Millionaires is the farthest thing from "Chick Lit" there could ever be. For those looking simply for a wonderful yarn, it is all that and more. For the reader of literature seeking a book worthy of multiple reads and contemplation, Free Food for Millionaires will stand up to that scrutiny with ease.

I was deeply disappointed in this book. When I began reading it, I was impressed by the author's writing style. Her prose is fluid and the book promised to be a quick read. Also, there was a lot about the subject which interested me: a recent college graduate trying to figure out what she should be doing and the issue of the push and pull of an immigrant background (I'm a fan, as is another reviewer, of books like Native Speaker although I myself am neither Asian nor the child of immigrants).

But about a quarter of the way through this book, I became really irritated. I don't object to the characters being so unpleasant and self-centered (frankly, I think that's a part of being 21 and believing, on the one hand, that you are an adult and being deeply frightened, on the other hand, by the idea that you are an adult) but I do object to the characters' all being so flat and so...well...unrealistic.

The author seemed to reflect the most absurd and simplistic stereotypes about Ivy League students, immigrant cultures and parents etc. All the Ivy League kids were wealthy or "poor but striving"---a very simplistic view of the student body at these schools especially in the early 1990s (things may be different now). Please, there were tons of middle-class kids at Ivy League schools at that time. But that was just one of the many cardboard caricatures littering this book. Casey's mother also struck me as an absurd caricature with little insight into who she really was beneath it all.

The relationships between the parents of the white wealthy characters and Casey or her friends were also laughably strange (similarly, I thought the portrayal of Casey's parents and her relationship with them was simplistic). The white parents were depicted as completely enthralled by their children and their children's lives to the most absurd degree and the relationships between these characters made no sense to me (I found the scene where Casey sees her boyfriend's mother in a café especially strange as the characters were interacting as though there were no real age differences between them and as though they were personal friends as opposed to a 21 year old girl who sees the 51 year old mother of her estranged boyfriend).

I kept thinking, because the author writes so fluidly, that these bizarre relationships were being depicted in this fashion because the author wanted to put us into Casey's world view but the more I read the less I could cling to this idea. I actually wound up putting the book down midway through, so I may be doing the author an injustice in that she may finally have gotten around to showing how these strange and simplistic stereotyped characters reflected Casey's view of the world, not reality---but if this were so, I think the author needed to put up a huge signpost earlier in her text.

I can only hope that the author matures in her understanding of characters and how people really do interact because her writing is very good.

I found this book by accident, and judging by the reviews, I had to buy it.
My only regret is waiting so long to read it! This book was amazing.
I just want to re-read it again.
I loved all the characters, flaws and all.
Casey Han was so hard-working and just a likeable person.
I can't wait for the the author's next book.
This was the BEST book I read so far this year, and I read alot. :)

My goodness. I have never been so impressed with the beginning of a book only to be let down like this. Up until around page 400, I was still filled with hope that this was going to be a groundbreaking book. It wasn't until around 400 pages that I realized where this shipwreck was headed. To summarize, let me first start with the good points.

First, it was well written in terms of the suspense. I admit that I couldn't stop turning the pages, even after I realized the underlying message. It was a 560 page book, and I finished it in five days. At times, it had me spellbound, and I couldn't wait to find out what happened to the characters. Second, I like Lee's style. It was a bit confusing the way that she dove into every character's head, but it worked. It captured the entire society. For that she should be praised. Third, I thought Lee did a pretty good job of describing the lives and feelings of her female characters. Fourth, Lee puts a fair amount of time into describing her Asian male characters. Most Asian female authors glance over their Asian male characters as if they were an afterthought. Lee actually gives them something to do.

Now the bad things about this book.

First, Lee's male characters are weak. They seem like women inside men's bodies, or they seem like superficial caricatures thrown in to support the women's stories. Whether the male characters were white or Asian, old or young, I just couldn't get into them because they weren't believable. Hugh Underhill, for example, is a stereotype of a Wall Street salesman. He thinks about trades, sex, and nothing else. Casey's father is a stereotypical Asian male brute who beats his children. Unu is a stereotypical Asian male loser who doesn't have self-control.

Second, what's with all the sex? Everybody likes sex, but this was just ridiculous. Your average porn doesn't have as much sex as this novel. It might be titillating, but it doesn't always make good literature, and in the case of this novel, I had problems in places where I felt the sex was not believable. For example, I highly doubt that all those old Koreans spend their time thinking about sex. I highly doubt Leah would have been so emotionally helpless because of her sexual urges.

Third, and this is the most problematic aspect of this novel, is the racial stereotyping of the men. This, in my opinion, is what eventually broke this novel. Sure, Lee gives more airtime to Asian men than perhaps any other Asian American female author to date. However, the same old tired stereotypes of Asian men and white men poison this book. A quick read should make this obvious. The shameless philanderer Ted who leaves his wife and infant child, the calculating rapist Charles Hong, the old Asian man Joseph who feels threatened and then takes it out physically on his grown daughter, the loser Unu who can't control his gambling habit, are all Asian. On the other hand, the perfect man with the blue eyes David Greene, the gorgeous and irresistable ladies man Hugh Underhill, the father figures Isaac Gottesman and Joseph McReed, are all white men. Even Casey's ex-boyfriend Jay Currie is depicted as a flawed but ultimately superior individual who is passionate and focused. With a quote on the back cover by David Henry Hwang, I probably should've predicted that Asian men were going to get dragged over the coals, but the amount of racial venom that this story dishes out really surprised me. I guess the racist anti-Asian male culture perpetuated by Hwang, Amy Tan, and Maxine Hong Kingston is alive and well.

If there were one moral lesson of this story that I took away with me, it was this: Asian women need to be more assertive and need to support each other, White women are either airheads or sluts, Asian men are evil or weak, and White men are the epitome of all that is good and wonderful in the world. The message is quite clear. It's not just one or two characters who embody these racial stereotypes, it's ALL of them.

I sometimes wonder why so many Asian American authors perpetuate such hatred against Asian American men. Sure, you'll find Asian American men who are rapists, child beaters, and philanderers, but I'd be surprised if those among our population are any more common than in other populations. Similarly, I'm always so shocked when I read how Asian American authors love to exalt White men as if they were gods. Both the hatred against Asian men and the deification of White men have to stop.

Anyway, two stars for the good writing. The overall message, however, is not something that I want to be a part of. It's sad that authors continue to perpetuate this kind of backward racist thinking in this day and age.

At first I was drawn to the book b/c I too am a product of an interracial relationship that is part Korean (on my side) and it was a welcome read to have some sympathy in the character of Casey. However her character's development is stunted throughout and her tortured naivete, battle with class, ideas of beauty and social facades, social norms and culture are seemingly developed through tireless chapters and encounter with friends and family -- but in the end her arc doesn't really take her anywhere believable. You feel as if Minjin Lee has built a character she herself likes and dislikes so passionately, and is so comfortable designing her in a life of chaos that she can't resolve her differences to end the book in any type of harmony.

As a K.A. I couldn't help but despise parts of Casey's personality and relate to her simultaneously. This probably means though that Lee was accurate in portraying what K.A. women in their 20s can portray to outsiders. Yikes!

This is one of the better hyphenated/A.A reads and especially if you're from or live in New York, it's not a bad read.

I couldn't put this book down. It's very well written in terms of storytelling (and there are many stories!) and the characters are fairly interesting. As I was reading, I kept thinking how similar this book was to The Great Gatsby, and got a little kick out of the Gatsby reference about 2/3 into the book.

My main complaint about the book is that Lee makes NYC seem like it consists of white ppl, Koreans and a handful of Chinese. No black ppl, not Hispanic ppl, no South Asians, nobody else. It is a little weird. And as to people's comments about Asian male bashing, I agree. There are a lot of despicable Asian male characters (one rapes, one hits his child, one cheats on his wife and gives her herpes), whereas the Asian women are all perfect, or perfectly flawed. I didn't care much for Casey as a person, though if any character could tie the story together, it's her w/ her vast connections to the rich and all the things that seem to happen around her. I also thought Lee could've done away w/ all the references to Casey sinking deeper into credit card debt. It seemed like that showed up on every other page. We get it--she's poor, and she's got impulse control issues.

I agree w/ whoever said this would make a good book-club book. It deals w/ tons of issues, probably the most prevalent one that of interracial dating and marriage. This book has its flaws, but if you look at ppl's reviews, most of them finished all 560 pages of it. For all of its problems, it was still pretty darn good.

As a conservative WASP who religiously selects non-fiction for his preferred reading, I was reticent to pick up a work of fiction, particularly one with a cultural backdrop that was dramatically unfamiliar to my life experiences. I devoured the book in two days, clinging to ever word that Ms. Lee used to weave the fabric of her passionately compelling story. I recommend this novel to anyone who wants to understand the vulnerabilites of the human spirit. Bravo Ms. Lee!!

I enjoyed this book very much. I couldn't wait to get back to it to see what would happen to Casey next (parts I-II). By the time it got to part III, though, it seemed to spin a little out of control; seemed a little disjointed from the rest of the story. But all in all I would recommend this as a very engrossing book, with very interesting characters.

I listened to all 16 of the disks of this novel -- patiently and expectantly. Some of the characters were interesting, and their dilemmas recognizable. Some of the appeal was the exoticism of getting into the heads of highly pious, Korean immigrants and ambitious, frightened Wall Street interns. I learned a little about Ivy League striving and the ambivalence of young professionals. Unfortunately, this book cries out for a strong editor.

I loved this book-- I have no boundaries on what I read and I try to be as diverse as possible b/c the world is not one way-- The book gave me a differing perspective into another culture which I can deeply appreciate. I think that its important in life to enhance your character by getting to know those around you-- Reading about Casey and the issues that she had to face in the working world was great! I was happy to see trials from another minorities perspective and I feel enhanced by the experience. Though the book is thick... it is a quick, engaging read. It's realistic characters, situations and plot manages to cover severe situations that allow personal enhancement and exposure to another intriguing culture. This book is wonderful and I would recommend it to anyone! Especially someone in their early, mid and late 20's.

Three chapters in and I knew this one was a winner. There are enough plot twists early on that pull you in to see where it will go. Surprises abound. Clean, clear images, a peek inside a different culture, thoughtful and belivable. Thank you Min Jin Lee.

It is difficult to be engaged by a book whose protagonist is such a foolish idiot. Great grades at an Ivy school, too stupid to get more than one banking interview, and blows that. Obviously Casey took little more from her upper crust "friends" than how to dress at a country club. The book appears to go downhill from there, but I could tolerate little more after the supposed boyfriend engages in a menage a trois with no concern for himself, the ...ladies... involved, or anything other than the moment.

I found this novel really engrossing for the first few hundred pages, but eventually I just got tired of reading about a bunch of characters who seemed oblivious to the fact that they were their own worst enemies. One of the main plot devices is infidelity, with almost every character in the story having an affair. This book worked for a while, but not for 600 pages.

I ordered this book eagerly after hearing a rave review on NPR's "Fresh Air," comparing this novel to the great Victorian novels and saying it had much in common with all of them. I honestly don't know what they were talking about. I found this protagonist completely annoying, unengaging, and a cipher. After 600 plus pages, I was so mad that I had spent a week of my summer vacation reading a book where NOTHING HAPPENS. I feel like I didn't read the same book as all of these reviewers did. A big disappointment.

This book made me want to smile, become angry, nod sagely, and cry all at the same time. Min Jin Lee has written a diamond of a book and I hope she will write more soon. The book is saturated with intelligence, sarcasm, blunt honesty, tearful moments, many forms of love, and reality that only a few authors have successfully attempted.

I just checked this book out of my library because I saw it on the shelf. I could NOT put it down. It was an excellent story with great character development. I did not want the story to end...though my husband did because I was literally reading the book every free moment I had. I have never done a review before for the store but felt compelled to review this book because it was so good.

I liked this book! It did get a little long for my preference, however, I felt like I gained a glimpse into the world of Korean-Asian Americans and although it was fiction, learned more about their culture and values. Good character development, by the end of the book, I could really relate with the struggles of the main character.

Min Jin Lee's Free Food for Millionaires is a novel you want to immediately read again after the first read. It is written with salty wit and texture, with moments that are breath taking and unexpected. The characters are rich and familiar - I especially was taken by Leah. A coming of age book that that is at once classic and modern, and addresses a wide age group. Recommended.

Rarely has a narrator been such a detraction from a story as Frasier is in reading Lee's Free Food for Millionaires. When mispronunciations occur so frequently, even to muddling "Paramus" (NJ) one has to wonder about the choice of reader, and further, whether any editing took place. Although a Korean narrator would have been a plus, one who knows the English language more than Ms. Frasier would be adequate.
Ms. Lee portrayed the uncomfortable merger of two worlds; unfortunately, any skill at her craft was besmirched by the narrator.

I took Free Food for Millionaires on vacation. From the first page, I didn't want to stop reading, and I was sorry when it came to an end. The characters are complex and, like real people, are not static; the story is engrossing; the writing is natural. This book will take up all your free time until you complete it -- it is simply that good!

I was able to put the book down many-many times and always returned to it hungrily. Not a drop of cynicizm, perfect observation of human nature,spiritual,informative,modern. Can't wait for Mrs.Lee's next writing.

Finally! An intelligent book for the new century. From the very beginning the book pulls you in and doesn't let you go. This is a must read on the beach or anywhere you might find yourself this summer. So fun to read!!!!!

Conspicuous consumption, stereotyping and brand name-dropping feature heavily in this novel. I found the characters to be predictable and narrow. At some points in the book, a reader could make a drinking game out of the codeword "B-school." Perhaps for readers in their 20's, familiar with the struggles to establish oneself, the book would be of interest. For the rest of us, Casey Han will be too strident, selfish and materialistic to sustain our interest or empathy.