Bad Asians

Bad Asians by Lillian Li is out now (published February 17, 2026).

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Bad Asians

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Bad Asians Release Date: February 17, 2026

Published

From the acclaimed author of Number One Chinese Restaurant comes an affecting novel about an unforgettable group of friends trying to make their way in the world without losing themselves, or one another.

Diana, Justin, Errol, and Vivian have been told their entire lives that success is guaranteed by following a simple checklist. They worked hard, got good grades, and attended a great university―only to graduate into the Great Recession of 2008. Despite their newly minted degrees, they’re unemployed, stuck again under their parents’ roofs in a hypercompetitive Chinese American community. So when Grace―once the neighborhood golden child, now a Harvard Law School dropout―asks to make a documentary about the crew, they say yes. It’s not like her little movie will ever see the light of day.

But then the video, “Bad Asians,” goes viral on an up-and-coming media platform (YouTube, anyone?). Suddenly, two million people know the members of the group as cruel caricatures, each full of pent-up frustrations with the others. And after a desperate attempt at spin control goes off the rails, they are flung even further off course from the lives they’d always imagined. As they grow up and grow apart, the friends desperately try to figure out who they are and what it means to live a successful life in the new millennium.

Li’s novel is both an exploration of Asian American identity and a portrait of a generation shaped by the rise of the internet and the end of the American dream. An epic tale of friendship and coming of age, Bad Asians asks: What if the same people who made you who you are end up keeping you from who you’re meant to be?

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Genre: Literary Fiction

Lillian Li

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