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Aliens in America  By  cover art

Aliens in America

By: Sandra Tsing Loh
Narrated by: Sandra Tsing Loh
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Editorial reviews

Her strict, penny-wise father was a first-generation Chinese immigrant. Her distracted globe-trotting mother was of German descent. Together, as all parents seem to do, they drove their teenaged daughter crazy. In this lively and smartly observed one-woman show recorded before a live audience, writer, performance artist, actress, and radio commentator Sandra Tsing Loh spares no embarrassing laugh-out-loud detail in describing her life growing up in hip 1970s Malibu, with parents who hadn't quite acclimated to the suburban middle-class American lifestyle. Loh is bitingly wonderful at mimicking her parents’ Chinese and German accents in a way that only a daughter could get away with, but she’s at her best, most touching and most satirical, when turning the jokes around on herself.

Publisher's summary

Contemporary satirist Loh spins a darkly comic, semi-autobiographical tale of growing up middle-class Chinese-German in Southern California. This comic monologue is for sons and daughters everywhere who feel that their parents must have beamed to Earth from another planet.
(P)2000 L.A. Theatre Works, Produced in Association with KCRW, All Rights Reserved

Critic reviews

What listeners say about Aliens in America

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Liked the stories -- hated the delivery

I am really a fan of storytelling, however this audio book was painful to listen to. I enjoyed the stories but the author's delivery was terrible. She needs to tone it down a little. It went from speaking in a very low voice you could barely hear to an earpopping screech which was so annoying I almost didn't finish it. Especially shrill were the accents she assigned to her parents and the volume she gave those accents. Towards the end it was particularly annoying and difficult to listen to, especially in the car where you would have to turn up the volume and then a few seconds later turn it down to a reasonable level. The stories were good but this reading gave me a headache.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Whoa!

I love Sandra Tsing Loh. I have been a fan of her segments on NPR for quite some time and I was definitely looking forward to hearing this program.

Having said that, I was literally almost unable to listen to this. Ms. Loh is a great storyteller and the content is funny, but I am certainly now hard-of-hearing as a result. The show almost takes on a practical joke quality because as soon as you turn up the volume to understand her quiet whispering, she delivers a blood-curdling shriek. And by the time you gather your wits about you enough to turn it down again, she is again at a whisper and you can no longer hear a thing.

I don't know whether is it her delivery or poor producing, but this program definitely needs to be edited to be easier on the ears. I do not recommend listening to this program through earphones!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Love Sandra but not this

I am a fan of Sandra Tsing Loh but found this un-listenable. It's a live performance in front of a theatre audience and she seems to have lacked confidence that her normal low key humor and subtle reading would carry the day. She is practically screeching much of the time; I hardly recognized her. Cleary she learned with later experience that less is more. I'll bet if she went back into the studio and re-did this piece it would be great, but as it is your better off without it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

She should not quite her day job.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

An actual professional presenter.

Would you be willing to try another book from Sandra Tsing Loh? Why or why not?

In text only.

Would you be willing to try another one of Sandra Tsing Loh’s performances?

If really really cheap.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Wrong person to read the story which is not that bad.

Any additional comments?

No.

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