Endia Brown-Bey
Meg Reilly
College Writing
27 November 2013
 
                                                        The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

                 Jennifer 8. Lee takes the readers on a journey to discovering the traditions of the Chinese culture and finding the best Chinese restaurants in America. Lee is able to draw in her readers with her informal, informational, comedic tone,writing and structure throughout her novel.  In each chapter she gives the readers a history lesson on the Chinese culture and food. Jennifer starts by researching the history behind the restaurants she visits. In each discovery she figures out the reasons to why certain Chinese foods have a specific name like General Tso's chicken.
           You can sense the the informal tone, and see the informational and comedic structure in her novel as she talks about The Golden Venture in chapter 8.  The statement "and if you add children in, the number , that number is also tricky" shows her comedic and informal side (111).  She gives a lot of historical information on how the Golden Venture came about. On page (110) she states "The Golden Venture immigrants had fanned out from New York city along the cost and into the heart land". "Most of those people who washed onto the shore that day worked as cooks, delivery boys and waiters". (110)
     Jennifer 8. Lee's style of writing really helped develop her novel and make it interesting to the reader. I honestly would get bored reading her novel if she wrote in a more formal manner and continued to discuss the history of the Chinese culture. Giving us a brief story about her personal experience with food, the culture adds flavor to each chapter. Her humor, informal way of writing and imagery like "The lightly sweetened crispiness of General Tso's chicken nestled in a bed of flashed, cooked broccoli"(12) also helped as well.