SOURCE: Review of The Foreign Student, in Library Journal, August 1998 Vol. 123, No. 13, p. 129.

[The following review complains about "a sense of confusion and disconnection" in Choi's writing.]

Set in Sewanee, Tennessee, this first novel [The Foreign Student] unravels the stories of 28-year-old Katherine Monroe and her friend "Chuck" Chang Ahn, a 25-year-old Korean-born student. Both characters have complex histories. For instance, at the age of 14, Katherine became involved with an English professor, a college roommate of her father's during his days at Sewanee. Equally poignant is Chuck's experience during the war in Korea, when he served as a translator for the United States. These tales, and a few others, linking minor and major characters, are loosely woven together in a fashion reminiscent of the writing of Amy Tan. However, the reader is unable to gain a strong sense of a single character before being moved to the next...