Published by Hogarth on 14 May 2019
Goodreads | Amazon
In twelve stunning stories of love, family, and identity, Xuan Juliana Wang’s debut collection captures the unheard voices of an emerging generation. Young, reckless, and catapulted toward uncertain futures, here is the new face of Chinese youth on a quest for every kind of freedom.
From a crowded apartment on Mott Street, where an immigrant family raises its first real Americans, to a pair of divers at the Beijing Olympics poised at the edge of success and self-discovery, Wang’s unforgettable characters–with their unusual careers, unconventional sex lives and fantastical technologies–share the bold hope that, no matter where they’ve come from, their lives too can be extraordinary.
I was really excited about this collection and was ready to rave about an Asian-American author and stories about the Asian-American experience, but unfortunately I felt completely disconnected from the characters and writing.
What I love about diverse stories is how they bring forward unique people/experiences and at the same time show how we're all human, all the same, all in this together. However, I didn't get that intimate feeling from these stories. I felt like I only got a sense of a type of person but not any particular person from these stories, if that makes any sense; the characters felt more like archetypes than real people. Perhaps short stories are not long enough to delve into these characters.
Theirs was a Chinese love. It was not about making each other happy. It was about sacrifice. It was a love devoted to suffering for the beloved. They were supposed to sacrifice over and over again for each other, each getting a turn to give up something he or she did not want for the other, until one of them died.
There were some interesting concepts with lots of potential though. I was particularly hopeful about "Home Remedies for Non-Life-Threatening Ailments," "Algorithmic Problem-Solving for Father-Daughter Relationships," and "Echo of the Moment."
"Home Remedies for Non-Life-Threatening Ailments": A silly list of emotional problems and advice on how to deal with them.
"Algorithmic Problem-Solving for Father-Daughter Relationships": A father tries to understand his daughter algorithmically.
"Echo of the Moment": A woman reinvents herself with luxurious outfits swiped from a dead rich lady's wardrobe.
The Goodreads rating for this collection is average, but the Goodreads reviews are quite positive, with many speaking on the beautiful writing and raw emotion. But again, I felt distant and disconnected from these stories and characters, and no emotional chord was struck within me whatsoever. I'm confused and would be very curious to hear from anyone else who has read this collection!
