Days of Distraction, Alexandra Chang
Days of Distraction, Alexandra Chang
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Days of Distraction
A Novel

Author: Alexandra Chang

Narrator: Greta Jung

Unabridged: 10 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 03/31/2020


Synopsis

“Startlingly original and deeply moving.... Chang here establishes herself as one of the most important of the new generation of American writers.”   — George SaundersA Most Anticipated Book of the Year from Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, and The MillionsA wry, tender portrait of a young woman—finally free to decide her own path, but unsure if she knows herself well enough to choose wisely—from a captivating new literary voice

The plan is to leave. As for how, when, to where, and even why—she doesn’t know yet. So begins a journey for the twenty-four-year-old narrator of Days of Distraction. As a staff writer at a prestigious tech publication, she reports on the achievements of smug Silicon Valley billionaires and start-up bros while her own request for a raise gets bumped from manager to manager. And when her longtime boyfriend, J, decides to move to a quiet upstate New York town for grad school, she sees an excuse to cut and run.Moving is supposed to be a grand gesture of her commitment to J and a way to reshape her sense of self. But in the process, she finds herself facing misgivings about her role in an interracial relationship. Captivated by the stories of her ancestors and other Asian Americans in history, she must confront a question at the core of her identity: What does it mean to exist in a society that does not notice or understand you?Equal parts tender and humorous, and told in spare but powerful prose, Days of Distraction is an offbeat coming-of-adulthood tale, a touching family story, and a razor-sharp appraisal of our times.

About Alexandra Chang

Alexandra Chang is the author of Days of Distraction. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, and her writing has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Guernica, and elsewhere. She lives in Ventura County. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by emma

I would say "possibly this book was made for me in a lab," due to how many things it has going for it that I have written at length about loving in the past, but I am trying to work on my belief that everything in the universe exists in orbit around me. So instead I'll say the following series of thi......more

Goodreads review by Jessica

Some books are plotty and others can meander through a life, soft and spare. This is one of the latter and it's a genre I get very picky about. There has to be some grand design to it, some purpose, some theme, some character that makes it all feel worthwhile and Chang delivers. Her protagonist--a m......more

“Days Of Distraction” by Alexandra Chang has garnered much publicity and recommendations, and deservingly so. It’s billed as a “coming-of-adulthood” story which is indeed part of it. It’s a story of a woman in her early twenties following her beloved from San Francisco to Ithaca NY. But she’s not bl......more

Goodreads review by Bkwmlee

Given the current unprecedented situation, the past few weeks have been one of the busiest and most difficult I’ve ever encountered — a sentiment I’m pretty sure many others also share at the moment. Reading has always been a solace for me and this time around is no exception. I’ve continued to read......more