{"id":502,"date":"2009-06-06T22:06:41","date_gmt":"2009-06-07T02:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=502"},"modified":"2009-06-06T22:06:41","modified_gmt":"2009-06-07T02:06:41","slug":"the-eternal-smile-by-gene-luen-yang-and-derek-kirk-kim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=502","title":{"rendered":"The Eternal Smile, by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/eternal_smile.jpg\" alt=\"eternal_smile\" title=\"eternal_smile\" width=\"148\" height=\"209\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-503\" \/><br \/>\n<em>The Eternal Smile<br \/>\nThree Stories<\/em><br \/>\nby Gene Luen Yang<br \/>\n&#038; Derek Kirk Kim<\/p>\n<p>First Second, New York, 2009.  170 pages.<br \/>\nStarred Review.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to decide how to classify this graphic novel, whether it&#8217;s fantasy or science fiction.  Since the flavor is more bizarre, mind-tripping science fiction, that&#8217;s the primary category I&#8217;ll file it under.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Eternal Smile<\/em> tells three stories.  I expected them to be linked, like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/american_born_chinese.html\"><em>American Born Chinese,<\/em><\/a> but these were only related by a similar theme.  All involved virtual reality and a person&#8217;s (or frog&#8217;s) deepest desires.  They talked about the disconnect between reality and our dreams, yet how dreams do make us who we are.  All three left me feeling thoughtful and meditative and satisfied.  <\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think of myself as a graphic novel fan, but Gene Luen Yang and a few others are changing that.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1596431563\/sonderbooksco-20\" target=\"outside\">Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Find this review on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\">Sonderbooks<\/a> at: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/eternal_smile.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/eternal_smile.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Eternal Smile Three Stories by Gene Luen Yang &#038; Derek Kirk Kim First Second, New York, 2009. 170 pages. Starred Review. It&#8217;s hard to decide how to classify this graphic novel, whether it&#8217;s fantasy or science fiction. Since the flavor is more bizarre, mind-tripping science fiction, that&#8217;s the primary category I&#8217;ll file it under. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,37,18,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-graphic-novel","category-science-fiction","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}