Review of Making a Scene by Constance Wu

*Making a Scene* by Constance Wu (2022). Published by Scribner.

Full confession time here: before reading this book, I had only ever seen Constance Wu in one movie ever, and it was Crazy Rich Asians.

Of course I had to watch that when it came out, and I own a copy of the movie on my iTunes these days.

Regardless, I don’t keep up with Wu at all, and when I heard she was having a memoir come out, I kind of shrugged back then and thought it was cool.

But then this keep showing up all over my social media feeds, and I realized a ton of people I knew in real life were talking about it and how brave she was.

After all that, I was dying to read the memoir despite knowing nothing really about Wu. One day during finals week, as I ran out of my previous audiobook,

I realized that my local library’s Libby had this audiobook available, so I checked it out and prepared myself to keep reading through it despite the stress of over sixty pages worth of essays being due all at once.

This definitely is a form of distracting me, but it certainly was worth it.

Let’s get into the review!

A series of notable events throughout Constance Wu’s life.

While some essay collections and memoirs hone in on a very specific event or period in someone’s life, Constance Wu’s focuses on a broader, more sustained section.

Chapters jump from adulthood to childhood, and I don’t know if this is because I had an audiobook, but the jumps could be a little confusing sometimes. I found myself scratching my head as she pivoted from a traumatic childhood experience where a teacher accused her of plagiarism to the next chapter being something set in the present day.

Despite that, Wu dives deeper than just her Hollywood career. Some of the most interesting chapters to me were about her relationship and life just trying to make it out of college, as she had moved to New York City and was struggling to become an actor, like a lot of us in creative industries tend to do.

She even discusses how she considered doing speech language for graduate school at one point, leaving behind the life in the arts for something a bit more stable.

But still Wu continued at it. I also found the chapters on her early years in Hollywood and trying to make it fascinating, as we can see how a lot of it is a bit of talent and luck through memoirs like these.

A lot of talented people have the chops for Hollywood, but they don’t have the same luck or connections that someone who might not have the talent can get. Wu definitely is talented, but she also didn’t rise to the top of the food chain immediately.

Wu is very open about her experiences struggling with depression, people in industry, and being an Asian American who’s very outspoken. I think a lot of people tend to forget that Asian Americans aren’t a monolith, so there are plenty of diverse opinions about there.

Granted, I had no idea about the backlash Wu had faced, and what ultimately got her to try and commit suicide over, but the way she described it reminded me of the echo chambers the Internet tends to create.

Social media can be a very beautiful concept, but sometimes it shows us the ugliest side of people when they think they’re anonymous.

Overall Thoughts

I give major kudos to Constance Wu throughout this book—if she really practices this form of kindness and forgiveness outside of the confines of this book, there is so much strength within her.

To forgive people for what they’ve done, especially when you’re a public figure like this, is an act of bravery, especially when they’ve wronged you in a way you might never forget.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book throughout the week and while driving to school and back, which means I would recommend it if you haven’t already picked it up!

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