David Tung Can’t Have A Girlfriend Until He Gets Into An Ivy League College
David Tung is a Chinese American high-school student in an upscale, Asian-majority, New Jersey suburb who works every day at his family’s restaurant. He strategizes every homeroom about how to improve his class rank so he can get into an Ivy League college. His only release? Hanging with his “real” friends once a week at Chinese school in NYC’s working-class Chinatown.
But when the pretty and popular Christina Tau asks him to a high school dance, David’s tightly regimented life gets thrown into a tailspin—especially since, as his mother likes to remind him, he’s not allowed to have a girlfriend! Should he defy his mother and go to the dance? Or defy Christina’s wishes and spend Saturday night studying for the MCATs? And how is he going to explain all this to Betty Jung, the standout pupil from Chinese School whose opinion he can’t help but care about?
Ed Lin’s YA-novel debut takes on coming-of-age in the Asian diaspora with a heartwarming and humorous exploration of race, class, young love, and the contradictory expectations of immigrant parents.
PRAISE
A beautifully observed, hilariously truthful, uplifting coming-of-age story that captures the heart and humanity of a Chinese American male teenager. I am impressed and inspired by Ed Lin’s achievement and wish I could’ve read this book when I was in high school.
—David Henry Hwang, playwright of Soft Power
Ed Lin has conjured up a fast-paced, acid-tongued, hilarious teen drama for our age, and David Tung is a nerd-hero readers will cheer on to the end.
—Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of Finding My Voice
You'll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get straight A’s.
—Chris L. Terry, author of Black Card
Ed Lin's New Jersey is entirely Chinese American and way, way more complex and threatening than the Soprano’s version of NJ. There are rich Chinese, really rich Chinese, Ivy League Chinese, super-educated Chinese, and then there’s David Tung, who has never been on airplane, works in his family’s Chinese restaurant, ranks a shameful (according to his mother) number eight academically in his school, and aspires to be with unreachable Chinese American girls way, way out of his league. For Chinese American readers who survived high school, it’s a hive-inducing horror movie from our past.
—Shawn Wong, author of American Knees
With tender and hilarious insight, Ed Lin offers an irresistible tale of first love, complete with swooning crushes, tongue-tied blunders, overbearing-but-well-meaning parents, and an outrageous cast of supporting characters only New York and New Jersey can produce.
—JJ Strong, author of Us Kids Know
You’ll fall hard for David Tung, a high-achieving teen with a heart of gold. Lin writes with a keen sense of character; even the most minor characters spring alive off the page.
—Sheba Karim, author of Mariam Sharma Hits the Road
I cringed, I cheered, I wished this book had been there for me as a teen.
—Jung Kim, co-author of Using Graphic Novels in the English Language Arts Classroom
A hilarious package. A fun and insightful read.
—Reinhardt Suarez, Booklist