In “The Comeback” by E. L. Shen, Maxine Chen, a twelve year old Chinese girl, deals with the battle of reality. Maxine has a passion for ice skating, which she continues to fight to pursue in her competitions. But she also has to learn how to balance her passion with her academics. Maxine’s issue with balancing work with her desire, while figuring out how to accept her Chinese heritage, relates to my life as an Asian American woman. Throughout the book, Maxine faces racist comments from her classmate. The book displays various insults that are used against the Asian Community. During Maxine’s art class, she is assigned a self portrait. After painting it, her classmate Alex criticizes her painting. He comments specifically about the way her eyes look, saying her eyes aren’t that …show more content…
Maxine eventually purchases eyelid tape to try and “fix” her eyes. Maxine starts to accept her Chinese heritage when a girl she admires in ice skating helps her with her makeup. She looks at herself and sees herself as beautiful. Near the end of the book, Alex gets called out for his discrimination against Maxine. Maxine’s parents talk to her about her grandparents' stressful immigration to America and their struggles to keep up in life. They tell Maxine to be proud to be Chinese, and to never let comments from people, such as Alex, take that away. E. L. Shen encourages people to take pride in their heritage and culture by showing Maxine’s journey to accept herself. Her journey to balance ice skating and her school work without getting overloaded with pressure is also present throughout the story. For me, working hard to maintain high grades with good mental health was always a challenge. Especially when I wanted to engage in my interests at the same time. “The Comeback” does a good job showing the stress and emotions that come with attempting to find balance in