Troublemaker

Troublemaker, a short book (less than five hours of listening), was written by John Cho, an actor that I like (and who is exactly my age but sadly married, yes, I’ve checked). It was the perfect story to listen to on my way back from the US last week.

Jordan is a young Korean-American kid who has a hard time at home and at school. His sister is bright and always successful, and Jordan always seems to get in trouble with his friends, at church, at school, and at home. On the day he gets suspended from school for cheating, he comes home and finds out that his parents are very worried about something else: the acquittal of the police officers filmed beating Rodney King (read about this here, if you don’t know the story). Tragically, the Rodney King story is linked to another killing, this time by a Korean-American woman, and Los Angeles is outraged and in flame.

Jordan, trying to prove to his father that he is a good kid and not selfish, will try to help his father and their family store. In doing so, he gets in many very dangerous situations with his friends and his sister. While entire neighbourhoods of Los Angeles are burning and being destroyed, including Koreatown, where the family store is located, Jordan takes his dad’s gun, sneaks into a restaurant, almost gets shot, tries to get help from a stranger for his wounded friend, meets a cop, gets into a stranger’s car, runs away from his sister, gets into a fight, and… many more scary things, until he is finally able to find his dad.

This book was written for young adults, but it’s worth reading it even if you’re an old adult. I had never heard about the Korean aspect of the Rodney King story, and Jordan’s adventures are touching and funny and scary and very interesting. Cho, who is himself Korean-American, is the narrator of the book, and I spent almost five hours (many of which stuck in traffic), truly enjoying listening to this story.