By Katrina T. De Los Reyes
At times verging on camp and the absurd, and at times poignant and heartfelt, Abraham Chang’s 888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers is a solid debut novel that evokes nostalgia and the halcyon days of youth. It’s a GenX Bible and a love letter to movies, music, pop culture, geek culture, and the people who influence us the most.
888 Love follows the journey of main character Young Wang as he comes of age in early ’90s New York City. A first-generation New Yorker born to Chinese immigrant parents, and heavily influenced by Eastern numerology, pop culture, and life lessons from his uncle, Young attends NYU where he meets Erena, a young woman with a larger-than-life personality. Erena is his “sixth love.” But will Erena be his 888 -THE BEST? Infinity love?
At its core (and in its title), 888 Love is a love story between Young and Erena, but as their relationship evolves, the story shifts back and forth from the past to the present, where we see and experience Young’s first five loves and how they’ve shaped him. And Young loves with abandon. He loves bands, comic-books, films, and more. He loves his family, friends, New York City, and numbers – he looks for meaning in the mundane. The narrative incorporates the third and second person point-of-views, letters, side notes, emails, interviews, and more. There is a stream-of-consciousness peek into Young’s mind.
While I was reading this book, the first emotion that came over me was jealousy. I’ve been trying to write my own coming-of-age story since 2021 that would aptly capture my love of music and pop culture, explore first love and sexuality, and also convey the many layers of familial expectations placed on me as a first generation immigrant growing up in the U.S. in the late ’80s through the late ’90s.
Chang has written a version of the story that has been brewing in my head with an eerily similar structure. Song titles and albums as chapters with soundtrack highlights? Check. That’s exactly what I’m doing as well. All of this to say that reading Chang’s 888 Love made me feel seen, weird quirks and all. It made me nostalgic for the past and it also made me see younger versions of myself through a kinder lens—that late-teen, young 20-something version of me that was insecure, indecisive, and immature; that younger me who was trying to find myself but also make my parents happy.
I was truly struck by certain passages. Here’s an example:
“You are obsessed with Robert Smith and company, Morrissey and Marr, and Gahan, and Gore. You spend hours ruminating on their obtuse Anglo references and overanalyzing their overly clever lyrics –how these pasty British men sing of a life through jangly guitars with jutted-jaw irony, and someone manage to reflect your preferred, parallel worldview: repressed, depressed, well-dressed. The chimes in ‘Pictures of You’ give you chills.”
This entire paragraph speaks to me. I know every single person named here, the song mentioned, and all the feels. I, too, was obsessed. I first moved to the U.S. from Manila in 1988 at 12 years old. It was lonely and terrible, and I felt miles and miles away from home. But salvation came in the form of MTV and the radio. I found music that helped me escape but also made me feel like home again. The Cure, Depeche Mode, and The Smiths were some of my favorite bands that gave me comfort and helped me form a core part of my identity.
It’s the specificity and plethora of pop culture references that gives this book both mass appeal but could intimidate readers. Even as someone who “gets” most of the references, I felt it was heavy-handed and repetitive at times. The length of the book, at 400 pages, also affected my enjoyment of the story. The third act felt both long and rushed at the same time. No spoilers here, but when Young reunites with his uncle, there’s also a revelation about Erena that, to me, did not add much to the story. And while I enjoyed the romance, I felt that Erena was the least interesting of Young’s relationships. Maybe I just don’t like her. I gravitated towards the other relationships in the book—Young’s relationship with his best friend Gina, for example, really shone, and Chang has a way of describing the many facets of a friendship and Young’s closeness with others.
Though not everything worked for me, I still have such reverence for this ambitious book and wholly recommend it. 888 Love has a frenetic, joyful energy that is appealing and honest. We see Young grow up amidst such big changes. The movement from analog to digital. Tape to CDs. Letters to emails. Landlines to pagers to cell phones. But even while all this change is happening, the experience of loving and losing someone is always timeless. There are other universal themes of friendship, finding one’s own path, and the experience of growing -up-immigrant that stand out. Chang’s writing has a fluidity and cleverness about it that I appreciate. Most of all, I love that this story is unapologetically unique and I love that the author did not hold back. The story made me feel that there is space even for this former Asian goth and former movie buff.
If you like (500) Days of Summer, Scott Pilgrim, Interior Chinatown, hanging out with friends, and have love and lost, chances are, you’ll enjoy this novel. There’s something comforting about 888 Love that makes me feel that it is possible to tell my own story in my own terms. No apologies.
Bangbangbang!
Katrina T. De Los Reyes, writing as Katrina M.Tuy, writes book reviews and reflections on Instagram as @booknerdkat. A first-generation Filipino immigrant, she is active in the AAPI community, volunteers in book festivals, and moderates author panels, and has a career in public service. She is also a writer working on her first novel.