Lonely Asian Woman, Sharon Lam

Lonely Asian Woman, Sharon Lam's debut novel, ruthlessly skewers stereotypes of Asian-New Zealanders at the same time as it offers a fantastical Wellington-centric bildungsroman.

The novel is set in contemporary Wellington and follows Paula, a lazy young woman who is stuck in a rut. The sight of a spam ad for ‘lonely Asian women looking for fun’ becomes a moment of profound realisation that she, too, is but a lonely Asian woman looking for fun. Paula's new outlook leads her to shoplift a cheesecake-laden supermarket trolley. The trolley contains an unexpected attachment. Lonely Asian Woman is not the story of a young woman coming to her responsibilities in the world. Instead, Lam defies the expected and leads the reader and her characters to a deft climax against the grain of the titular lonely Asian woman.