This is one my rarely finished English book, and it is the first memoir I had read.

I had counted my reading speed, it cost me one hour to deal with 20 pages. It is not easy, mainly because there was about 8 percent words are strange to me, but the story is funny and lively, that intrigued me keep reading and eventually I completed all 220 pages of this book.

The most impressive moment in reading is that this miserable guy who struggled with his life until it really began changed on page 170, so almost 70 percent content from the beginning he was so unlucky and lame, bad things came after him one by one.

This book is about one of the millions immigrants story. Every immigrant had experienced the culture shock and language challenge, our main character, poor Jimmy, he moved to US at his 13, at his first school day a girl asked him "What's up?" He didn't understand it at all, even he got English educated in HongKong, it is helpless and made him despertate. Jimmy had no money and no girl friend for many years, compare to his two co-workers, they had sex with over one hundred girls at their thirties, Jimmy was still a virgin even he tried many time but failed of building relationship with girls.

I have no any idea about Jimmy O Yang before I read this book, I thought this guy was notable by his stand up show, but it is not true. In the book Jimmy revealed that many stand up comedians are so poor and barely get paid from their show, only someone are truly desperate then they will take this job for living. So Jimmy's real job was like doorman, then was DJ and used car salesman. He even can't affort 300 bucks rent until he finally get the series regular actor change, so he could quit his second job at that time, Uber driver.

This book is quiet fun with many interesting scene and his inner reactions, it shows a young man's struggle with trying to assimillate US society, then find and chase his American dream. But as I mentioned, he was beaten with embarrassment every time, those looks hilarious and pity, maybe that is why comedy always with sad and tears.

Needless to say(this phrase appeared many time so I remembered), at the end, Jimmy said that he didn't treat English, stand up and audition as barrier but opportunities to make him grow up, I deeply agree with that. This story ended with a pure Asian movie and Jimmy was proud his ethicity and believe all he and our Asian actors did will change and improve the impression by American and whole world, it really worth a thumb up.

Besides it is a truly good memoir about a Chinese immigrant experience and how to chase his American dream, it revealed some things we only heard them on the TV: gangsters, strippers, drugs and how to audition in Hollywood, etc. To be honest, it expanded my knowledge and gave me some shock.

On the other hand, this book is a good English learning material for intermediate learners. First of all, the story was very funny and intriguing, secondly the words Jimmy used are common and natural in real life. Even there are some new vocabs but you can easily guess the meaning by the context.

I bought its audio version as well when I was reading, so next I am going to read this book for more than three times, I am looking forward to enjoy Jimmy's story again with more details and get more benefits for my English learning.