Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese is a compelling tale of mixed identity and outsiderism. This graphic novel mingles three stories: the identity struggles of an Asian-American boy as he passes through middle school, a recounting of the Chinese myth of the Monkey King, and a sitcom-style farce highlighting the misadventures of all-American boy Tommy and his Chinese-stereotype-personified cousin Chin-Kee.

Exclusion is a common theme in all of the stories. The Monkey King is excluded from a heavenly fete because of his primate status; vowing to reject his background, he loses himself to denial (well, and being stuck under a mountain for 500 years). Jin Wang, the middle-school student, struggles with the prejudices of his classmates, taking out his frustration on his less-Americanized friend Wei-Chen. Meanwhile, Tommy feels defined by the embarrassment of his cousin’s annual visits, to the point where Chin-Kee is blamed for all of Tommy’s troubles, from girl problems to difficulties fitting in at his new school.

Yang’s dialogue is written with a sharp ear for the betrayals that can be inflicted by children desperate to fit in. He’s also the possessor of a comprehensive catalogue of slurs and stereotypes directed toward people of Asian descent, many of which, you feel, are the result of hard experience.

The cartoonish art is colorful and lively. Each section has subtle shifts in tone—Jin’s is the most realistic, albeit with the common comic flourishes of crackling lightning and onomatopoeias. The Monkey King sections are given to elaborate kung fu battles, while the Tommy chapters evoke Chin-Kee as a stereotype straight from a World War II propaganda piece, complete with pigtail, buckteeth, slanted eyes and mocking “l for r” speech patterns.

The interweaving of the separate stories adds up to a thoughtful reflection on immigrant life and the heartbreak of having no place to truly belong. It feels directly geared for a younger audience; adult readers will probably find it an enjoyable read, if a bit telegraphed.

American Born Chinese has lots of funny moments—the Monkey King’s attempts to piss on the walls of the universe, teachers’ steady mispronunciations of their new student’s names. The most effective scenes are those of pathos, however, such as when a group of friends’ gentle teasing over a first romance is interrupted by slurs from random passerby. Cultural windows are consistently being slammed shut, and Yang ably evokes the effort required to pry them open again.