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The Woo-Woo
- How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
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The Woo-Woo
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Publisher's Summary
In this jaw-dropping, darkly comedic memoir, a young woman comes of age in a dysfunctional Asian family whose members blamed their woes on ghosts and demons when in fact they should have been on antipsychotic meds.
Lindsay Wong grew up with a paranoid schizophrenic grandmother and a mother who was deeply afraid of the “woo-woo” - Chinese ghosts who come to visit in times of personal turmoil. From a young age, she witnessed the woo-woo’s sinister effects; at the age of six, she found herself living in the food court of her suburban mall, which her mother saw as a safe haven because they could hide there from dead people, and on a camping trip, her mother tried to light Lindsay’s foot on fire to rid her of the woo-woo.
The eccentricities take a dark turn, however, when her aunt, suffering from a psychotic breakdown, holds the city of Vancouver hostage for eight hours when she threatens to jump off a bridge. And when Lindsay herself starts to experience symptoms of the woo-woo herself, she wonders whether she will suffer the same fate as her family.
On one hand a witty and touching memoir about the Asian immigrant experience and on the other a harrowing and honest depiction of the vagaries of mental illness, The Woo-Woo is a gut-wrenching and beguiling manual for surviving family and oneself.
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What listeners say about The Woo-Woo
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Christine Wiedemann
- 2022-07-05
Hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time
An incredible story of the “Canadian Dream”. Worth listening too since the voices are so very funny and add so much to the story. Loved it
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Joanna
- 2019-06-26
amazing!
I just loved this book. couldn't stop listening. so funny yet heartbreaking too. fantastic narration. thank you for sharing your story!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Marla
- 2019-03-21
Yikes
Although a little shocking, really interesting to someone who also grew up in Hongcouver. That being said, it’s very sad and only a little funny.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2018-11-13
lifelong therapeutic
I came from Asian parents and have had similar but not as intense scars from my struggling parents. I appreciate Ms. Wong's honest and courageous stories to help heal my wounds too.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- 234vsi
- 2019-04-16
So real
Excellent book, enjoyed! can't wait for your next book. True Chinese family stories, highly recommend!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Sharron padden
- 2019-07-21
The Woo Woo
The book was very hard to get into for the first half. After that it was enjoyable.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sierra Skye
- 2018-11-28
Unforgettable
This is a great book about family, abuse, and mental health. It is a dark, dark, dark comedy. I think the subtitle (no doubt chosen by the publisher and not the author) makes the book seem like it is going to be more about hockey and drug raids than it is. I'm guessing they wanted a subtitle that they thought might sell more copies. I hope it works because this is the kind of fantastic memoir that is hard to summarize in such a way that makes it sound as enjoyable as it was. Like if I were to describe the book, I would call it a dark memoir about how mental illness is impacted by culture and vice versa. That doesn't sound like something you would want to read, but actually it is! This book is definitely up there in the Top 10 best memoirs I've read, along with Angela's Ashes, The Glass Castle, Running with Scissors, and Lucky. It is an unforgettable book about a girl who grew up without any of the emotional and physical kindnesses that we assume children will receive from their parents, but instead with physical and verbal abuse and emotional and intellectual neglect, and yet the author figures out—surely, but very slowly—how to become a person.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nikki Wong
- 2019-08-16
Stranger than fiction!
Listening to this book was like observing a fiery car crash: horrifying yet deeply fascinating, and most importantly, impossible to look away. The author has a real talent for storytelling and wow, what a story to tell. Thank god for the humorous and self-deprecating tone, because this tale of mental illness and family dysfunction would be too bleak without it. I'm a 3rd generation Chinese-Canadian living in Vancouver (where the story takes place) so I was especially interested in this story; Lindsay Wong did not disappoint! (The narrator definitely ups the entertainment factor with her various character portrayals.)
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 2019-06-28
Wow! Human resiliency at its finest!
This is truly an unbelievable story that I fear is all to true for more families than it should be. It also begs the question, how do you stop the craziness that was Lindsay's childhood from being passed on through generations? Not everyone is meant to have children and how Lindsay & her siblings were treated truly saddens me & makes me even more grateful for the wonderful childhood my parents gave my brother and I!
Lindsay has done a great job turning what I am sure are horrific memories into a comical yet truthful look into mental health issues. Let's face it, there was some serious mental health issues in her family that have been left untreated. It surprises me how a child can come through the experiences that were not only so negative and crazy but never seemed to have physical touch in a loving manor which I believe all children require to develop compassion, love, confidence and self esteem. I would think that writing this book would help her let go of the painful memories and move forward hopefully with a more positive outlook on life.
I truly enjoyed this book and thought it was written in such a manor that made me laugh yet also cringe at what some people have to overcome. It was a good purchase!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Hugo Vicente Luzuriaga Alvarez
- 2018-11-03
My two cents
Although the subject is about mental disease (a serious subject...), I found this audiobook quite entertaining.
I do not know if this is a comedy, but there are a lot of funny anecdotes in her story. Some people might find her family and the author to be insensitive, but everything gets explained better as the story carries on. It also give a scope about Vancouver.
I particularly liked the dad. He was so crude and it made me laugh. The narrator is very good too particularly her accents!
It is a good book for those that like dark humour... like me!
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7 people found this helpful