A knowing and luminous self-portrait.

-- "O, The Oprah Magazine"

Meditates on how art shapes who we are, unpacking its author's own coming-of-age as a gay Korean man to craft persuasive, engrossing arguments.

-- "Entertainment Weekly"

Chee has written a moving and personal tribute to impermanence, a wise and transgressive meditation on a life lived both because of and in spite of America, a place where, he writes, you are allowed to speak the truth as long as nothing changes.

-- "New York Times Book Review"

Chee's insights about writing, love, and activism are hard won, honest, and incredibly wise.

-- "Guardian (London)"

He beckons readers to experience his private moments with such clarity and honesty that we're immediately brought into his consciousness. At the same time, he asks us to contemplate the largest questions about identity, sexuality, family, art and war.

-- "Washington Post"

Chee remains introspective and self-reflective without arrogance...Chee is able to write about himself and, by extension, about all of us.

-- "Esquire"

Every essay, no matter the subject, exhibits warmth, rigor, tact...The mask conceals and it reveals; writing transfigures and it uncovers. That's the gift that writing has given Chee, and it's the gift that his wonderful new collection gives its readers.

-- " Boston Globe"

An absolute gift of a book for writers everywhere. Every single essay is a pearl.

-- "Chicago Review of Books"

His essays are an invitation not to review the rules of writing but to trace a unique pathway into knowledge and being in and through writing.

-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"

Chee's writing has a mesmerizing quality; his sentences are rife with profound truths without lapsing into the didactic.

-- "NPR"