Staff Pick
I feel like I read this debut collection in one, fast, maniacal gulp. Filled with displacement and redemption, video games and karaoke, Cleo Qian’s writing is unnerving, strange, delicious — all of the things you might want out of a collection with this title and this cover. I promise, once you’ve read the first story (called “Chicken. Film. Youth.” — a title that’s a short story in and of itself), you’ll be all in. For fans of Ling Ma and Samantha Hunt. Recommended By Kelsey F., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The electric, unsettling, and often surreal stories in LET'S GO LET'S GO LET'S GO explore the alienated, technology-mediated lives of restless Asian and Asian American women today. A woman escapes into dating simulations to forget her best friend's abandonment; a teenager begins to see menacing omens on others' bodies after her double eyelid surgery; reunited schoolmates are drawn into the Japanese mountains to participate in an uncanny social experiment; a supernatural karaoke machine becomes a K-pop star's channel for redemption. In every story, characters refuse dutiful, docile stereotypes. They are ready to explode, to question conventions. Their compulsions tangle with unrequited longing and queer desire in their search for something ineffable across cities, countries, and virtual worlds.
With precision and provocation, Cleo Qian's immersive debut jolts us into the reality of lives fragmented by screens, relentless consumer culture, and the flattening pressures of modern society — and asks how we might hold on to tenderness against the impulses within us.
Review
“These stories shatter stereotypes and awaken vibrant, queer conversation through a glaring critique of our screen-filled society.” She Reads
Review
“LET'S GO LET'S GO LET'S GO is sharp and unprecious about the sticky aspects of having flesh. This collection is riddled with outsiders of different shades, of people who stand back from their realities with secret and burning questions. There are really tender portraits of yearning, of the unsteady but precious entanglements of both platonic and romantic love. It's careful and soberly rendered, and it was a pleasure to read.” Raven Leilani, author of Luster
Review
“Perfectly askew, the stories in LET'S GO LET'S GO LET'S GO thrum with restless questioning and acute longing, shot through with tart, knowing observations. It seemed to vibrate in my hands as I read it.” Ling Ma, author of Bliss Montage
About the Author
Cleo Qian is a writer from southern California. Her work has been published in The Guardian, Shenandoah, Pleiades, The Common and elsewhere. She lives in New York City. LET'S GO LET'S GO LET'S GO is her first book.