Review: Daughters of Shandong (by Eve J. Chung)

My Rating:  5 stars

This incredible debut by Taiwanese-American lawyer Eve J. Chung doesn't come out until May 2024, but I was able to get an advance copy and boy am I glad I did.  Inspired by her family's history, Chung weaves the fictional story of Li-Hai, the eldest of four daughters from the Ang family, wealthy landowners in the small rural town of Zhucheng in Shandong, China. The year is 1948 and even though World War II has officially ended, China is caught up in its own civil war between the current ruling party, the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists led by Mao Zedong.  In a country still steeped in the Confucian ideal of "zhong nan qing nu" ("value men, belittle women"), Hai's mother Chiang-Yue is treated worse than a servant in the Ang household due to her inability to produce a male heir (to say that Yue is "mistreated" is an understatement —  in addition to suffering constant physical and verbal abuse at the hands of her mother-in-law, her husband also neglects her and never speaks up for her).  In the eyes of the Ang elders, Hai and her sisters, being daughters, are considered "disappointments" and "useless mouths to feed" (their grandmother Nai Nai has no qualms about telling them to their faces that they are better off dead  so the family doesn't have to waste money on them anymore) — which is why, when the Communist army invades the town and the family is forced to flee, they decide to leave mother and daughters behind.  Abandoned and left to fend for themselves, Yue and her daughters become destitute and penniless after the Communists seize their home and kick them out.  Worse yet, in the absence of any Ang family males, Hai, as the eldest daughter at 13 years old, is chosen to answer for her father's and grandfather's "crimes" and is subsequently tortured to near death.  With the help of former workers whom Yue had always treated kindly, mother and daughters escape to the city of Qingdao, where they hoped to reunited with the rest of the family. They survive the arduous journey to Qingdao, only to find out that the family actually relocated to Taiwan (where Chiang Kai-shek re-established the Nationalist base after fleeing China).  Abandoned once again, the Ang women figure out a way to overcome the many obstacles they face, including  enduring a thousand mile journey to Hong Kong and eventually finding their family in Taiwan.  

The story is narrated in the first person from Hai's perspective, which was the perfect narrative structure in this case because it made the experience more immersive and personal.  In her Author's Note (which is not to be missed), Chung explains the inspiration for the story, which was originally going to be a biography of sorts about her maternal grandmother, whom she had stayed with in Taiwan as a child.  But after her grandmother died, she realized there were too many gaps in her grandmother's life that she knew nothing about and regrettably had never asked, so she pivoted to turning the family history she was planning to write into a fictional story using the notes and interviews that she and her mother had already gathered.  Basing the character of Hai on her maternal grandmother, Chung was able to fill in the gaps of her own family history, but more than that, for us readers, she delivered a beautifully-written story about a family of women who survive devastating heartbreak and hardship to resiliently rise above the entrenched cultural norms that bind them to inferiority within their society. 

As a Chinese daughter myself, I resonated deeply with Hai and many of the struggles she went through in trying to reconcile her identity with her culture.  While I didn't share all of the experiences she went through, I did grow up under the same Chinese culture, so I was familiar with many of the antiquated traditions as well as the historical context in the story. Even with this familiarity, I have to admit that many of the scenes involving Hai's POS (pardon my French) father and grandmother and their horrible treatment of the mothers and daughters in the family were hard to read. With that said though, this is actually where Chung's story stands out from many of the other historical novels that revolve around Chinese culture and tradition — I appreciated the way that she succinctly and clearly lays out the facts of how women were treated during that time without mincing words.  More than any other novel I've read in recent years (specifically ones written in contemporary times), this one does a great job exploring the internal battle that many of the women who grow up in these restrictive cultures face — despite understanding the injustices they suffer, they've internalized what they've been taught to the extent that it not only becomes a "normal" part of who they are, they also oftentimes end up perpetuating these same injustices (whether intentionally or unintentionally) onto future generations. To this point, there were many thought-provoking quotes throughout the book (which I of course marked up), but the following excerpt stood out to me the most.  In this scene, Hai (as an adult now) gets into an argument with her mother, who finally, after many years, gives birth to a son, Ming, to carry on the Ang family name (though ironically, this doesn't alleviate the poor treatment that the mother continues to endure because the mother-in-law is already used to abusing her); Hai sees her mother giving her baby brother Ming a bottle of milk while she only gives her other daughter Hua (who was born right before Ming) a bottle of rice water — Hai is livid that her mother would continue to perpetuate the "preferential treatment of boys over girls" tradition after everything they suffered the past couple years precisely because they weren't sons:  "…Mom began to weep. "Hai, Ming is the only one who will support us when we are old. The only one who can care for us in the afterlife. I love Hua and all my other daughters, but I have a duty, as a wife, to make sure Ming grows up well. When you have your own son, you will understand." She cried because she thought I was judging her unfairly, without realizing that her words had cut me deep. Mom hadn't said it explicitly, but I heard it loud and clear: All of us girls were worth less than Ming. She loved us less than Ming. Yet Mom was confused by my anger, and oblivious to my pain. To her, the ancient traditions centering the son were our pillar, entwined in our religion, inseparable from our existence on this earth. Telling her I was hurt would be like saying I was offended by the typhoon that tore through Mount Davis. In her mind, these injustices were part of being a woman, and bearing them was simply our fate. Men made the rules in our society, but women often enforced them. Was there something about having a son that transformed us? Was that why Nai Nai was so wretched? Was that going to be me as a mother? I didn't want it to be. After what I had been through, how could I fall into that same pattern?" Arriving at this understanding becomes tremendously important for the characters in the story, which I won't get into here (you will need to read this one to find out more).

Needless to say, this is a book I highly recommend, but with the understanding that it definitely won't be an easy read.  As with most stories about the travesties of war, this one has brutal scenes as it follows the harrowing journey of the Ang women through several generations, but the payoff at the end is well worth the read.  This story (and its characters) is not one that I will forget anytime soon!

Received ARC from Berkley / Penguin Random House via BookBrowse First Impressions program.

Review: The Upstairs Delicatessen (by Dwight Garner)

My Rating: 4 stars

This interesting memoir from New York Times book critic Dwight Garner came out last month and while it initially wasn't on my radar at all, I decided to pick it up when I saw what the book was about: reading and eating (perfect timing for Thanksgiving!). In this memoir, Garner writes about his "upstairs delicatessen" (a term borrowed from critic Seymour Krim) which refers to his memories involving his two lifelong passions — "reading about eating" and "eating while reading" (what a fantastic title/subtitle!!). Divided into 5 chapters (aptly titled Breakfast, Lunch, Shopping, Drinking, Dinner) plus an Introduction and Interlude, Garner writes enthusiastically about his experiences with his "twin joys" of reading and eating, but more than that, he also compiles for us a full-to-the-brim cornucopia of food (and eating) references and quotes from his broad range of reading over the years (his reading runs the gamut from books, poems, short story collections, essays, magazine and newspaper articles, etc.). Some of the writers and works he mentions are well-known, others I've honestly never heard of, but regardless of whether I was familiar with the works or not, it was still a lot of fun to read.

Literary references aside though, I also enjoyed reading about Garner's life and his "food adventures" growing up in West Virginia and Florida. I found the section where he talks about his relationship with his wife Cree especially fascinating given their completely opposite food-related backgrounds — she comes from a family of "food connoisseurs" (chefs and restaurant owners) who were all about fresh ingredients and growing their own food (he mentions that his wife grew up bringing leftover frog legs to school for lunch), while he comes from a working class family that pretty much ate whatever they found around the house (i.e.: bread laden with mayonnaise and cheese slices, potato chips, some red drink from powder mix, etc.). Despite these differences, their relationship not only works, but thrives — Garner relays their family's "quirkiness" in relation to food with such affection and humor, which I really appreciated.

Overall, this was a fun, delightful read that I highly recommend — though words of warning that some of the food that Garner describes as having eaten might make you feel queasy (personally, I will admit to feeling a tad grossed out when I read about the famous "peanut butter and pickle sandwich" that Garner describes his dad making for him, but that's mainly because I dislike pickles). With that said, the sheer volume of food-related anecdotes that he gathers in here is impressive, so if anything, picking this one up for those nuggets alone was well worth my while.

Review: A Man of Two Faces (by Viet Thanh Nguyen)

My Rating:  5 stars

As soon as I turned the last page of Pulitzer Prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen's new memoir, my first reaction was, well, silence because I was too awe-struck to speak.  I sat there for quite some time, reflecting on what I had just read (to say there was A LOT to reflect upon is an understatement), but also marveling at the brilliance that I had just witnessed.   Believe me when I say that this is no ordinary memoir — the content itself (with Nguyen's eloquent yet unflinchingly honest writing style) is powerful enough on its own, but the way he plays with elements of form throughout the book honestly just blew me away.  The formatting of the book is important here — the sections that mimic poetry, the clever use of white space, the different size fonts, the use of "TM" after certain words, the thoughtful (and careful) placement of words / phrases / sentences on the page to convey specific ideas, the shifting of voice and point of view, the interspersing of family photographs where appropriate, etc. (truly, I could go on and on) — all of this had the combined effect of creating a unique and powerful reading experience unlike any other.  I've read my fair share of memoirs over the years, but I've definitely never read anything like this one.

As I mentioned earlier, Nguyen writes eloquently, using language and prose in a way that captivates, yet doesn't come across as pretentious or highbrow.  In fact, Nguyen writes in such a straightforward, lucid manner that, at times, I couldn't help but feel taken aback by the brutal honesty of his words.  At the same time, I also resonated deeply with much of what he wrote (even though our backgrounds couldn't be more different). Case in point — I had actually received an advance copy of Nguyen's memoir and started off reading the e-arc, but barely a few pages in, I was already highlighting so many things that resonated with me, that I wound up getting a physical copy of the book instead so I could have something tangible in which to make notes (I ended up using an entire sleeve of colored sticky tabs because I found things I wanted to flag on nearly every page).  Something else that struck me with this memoir — Nguyen talks about a lot of very difficult topics in here (as he mentions himself at certain points, this is his family's story, but also a "war story"), yet he also infuses the entire narrative with a self-deprecating sense of humor — the net result being a perfect balance of serious and funny that made the "heavy" topics easier to engage with.  Personally, I found myself laughing and crying in equal measure while reading this book.

To be honest, I don't think any review will be able to do justice to the brilliance of what Nguyen was able to achieve with this memoir. I initially thought about including a few quotes in this review that especially resonated with me, but there were so many good ones that I had trouble picking only a few, so I decided not to include any.  Instead, I recommend anyone reading this review go pick this one up (a physical copy, as that's the best way to appreciate this memoir with such an unconventional structure) and experience it for yourself.  

Lastly, I wanted to put in a plug for Miwa Messer's interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen on her Poured Over podcast.  The conversation they had about this book was absolutely wonderful and inspiring — definitely a great supplement to the reading experience with this one! 

Received ARC from Grove Press via NetGalley.

Review: The Art of Gathering (by Priya Parker)

My Rating: 4 stars

I had heard about this book when it first came out in 2018 and over the past couple years, I kept hearing the book recommended over and over again, both by strangers as well as by bookish friends.  I have social anxiety so I've never been one for hosting and I rarely ever go to parties, which is why, when I first heard that this book was about "gatherings," I put off reading it.  But then as I heard people talking about the book, I realized it could be applicable to gatherings of all kinds, including work gatherings both formal and informal (such as meetings and conferences), plus I was curious, so I decided to finally pick this book up.  I'm glad I did because I ended up really enjoying this one, to the point that I couldn't put it down (like a page-turner, which is rare for a non-fiction "self-help" book) and ultimately finished it in one sitting.  I also ended up taking a lot of notes, which surprised me given the topic.

The book's author, Priya Parker, is a facilitator and strategic advisor trained in the field of conflict resolution.  Because of this background, the advice she gives focuses more on the human aspects of gatherings (the hosts and guests) rather than the logistics (which she does cover, but to a lesser extent). In one of the chapters, where she talks about how most event planning guides lean more toward the logistics aspects such as what type of food to prepare and when to start, she writes: "This encapsulates the prevailing approach to gathering that I hope to change: fussing over the crudités and hoping for the best when it comes to the human beings.  We deserve better."  Indeed, we do!! 

I also really liked the way Parker broke down the information, going in order from deciding the purpose of the gathering and figuring out the guest list to the responsibilities of the host through to the closing.  The examples that Parker gave ran the gamut from simple (a family dinner, a weekly morning meeting at work) to extreme (large city-wide dinners, professional conferences involving hundreds of world leaders), which I found to be an interesting way to show how her techniques could be applied to any type of gathering — though at the same time, Parker does make clear that not all techniques will be applicable to every gathering, which I appreciated.

One of the things I was surprised to learn was how there could be so many different aspects to a gathering, which I had never thought about before — for example, with the opening and closing of a gathering, there could be multiple steps involved beyond just saying "welcome" and "thank you."  Parker explains the importance of focusing on a good opening and closing by pointing to studies about attention span and memory which "show that audiences disproportionately remember the first 5 percent, the last 5 percent, and a climactic moment of a talk.  Gatherings…work in much the same way.  And yet, we often pay the least attention to how we open and close them, treating these elements as afterthoughts."  I've actually heard this information before in other iterations but never correlated it to openings and closings of gatherings, so it was an eye-opener for me.

One of the sections that resonated most with me is when Parker talks about vulnerability, authenticity, and honesty during gatherings and how "the stranger spirit" is an important contributing factor to achieving this because "it is often easier to confess parts of our lives with strangers, who have no stake in our lives, than with intimates who do."  This is absolutely true for me, which is one reason why, social anxiety not withstanding, I tend do better at gatherings with casual acquaintances whom I probably will never see again versus gatherings of family, friends, and co-workers whom I have to face every day.  I wasn't expecting to encounter such resonant insight in a book about gathering!

Overall, I found this book quite fascinating. The title is actually perfect, as Parker truly does talk about gathering as an "art" form.  I also appreciated how Parker arranged the information in such a practical way that was both easy to understand and follow.  I highly recommend this book, as I feel there is valuable insight to be gleaned here, whether you usually play the role of host or guest (or, like me, neither).  This is not a typical event planning guide though, so if that's what you're interested in, definitely look elsewhere; but if you're interested in a thoughtful, well-written book about how to make gatherings more meaningful from a "people" perspective, then I absolutely suggest picking this one up.

Review: The House of Doors (by Tan Twan Eng)

My Rating: 4 stars

I've wanted to read Tan Twan Eng's works for years, ever since a few bookish friends of mine read both his previous award-winning novels and kept recommending them to me.  While I do have both of those novels on my TBR (as well as physical copies sitting on my shelf), I keep falling into the "too many books, too little time" trap and of course, in the end, I wasn't able to get to them (someday though, I am determined that I will get to all the books I've been meaning to get to!).  Anyway, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise then that when I heard Tan would have a new book out this year, I jumped at the chance to grab a copy, and while I was hoping to have read this one last month before it was actually released, getting to it now is better late than never.

One of the things I've heard that Tan is known for is the beautiful, lyrical prose that he utilizes to tell his stories.  While yes, there was definitely quite a bit of beautiful writing in this newest novel, it actually didn't permeate the entire story, at least it didn't feel so to me. I felt that some parts — especially those related to the Proudlock murder trial — were written in a simpler, more straightforward style that seemed to be a little bit at odds with the more descriptive and elegant prose in other parts. But then I later read in an article that with the trial segments, Tan was trying to hew as close to the real life unfolding of the event as possible, in which case, the more restrained, straightforward writing made sense. 

This is actually one of those books where there technically wasn't much action in terms of plot (a large part of the book was the main protagonist Lesley Hamlyn recounting a story to famous author W. Somerset Maugham) — yet at the same time, there seemed to be several threads running through the book that felt necessary to keep track of. 

Essentially, the story is a reimagining of Maugham's trip to Penang in the 1920s and what he learns while there becoming the inspiration for one of his later books, the short story collection entitled The Casuarina Tree (which was published in 1926).  While I'm familiar with Maugham as an author, since I've read a few of his previous works (my favorite of the ones I've read is The Painted Veil), I knew very little about his personal life, so I was curious how much of the way Tan depicted Maugham was fact versus fiction — which of course took me down the rabbit hole of reading up on Maugham after finishing the novel (it was fascinating to see how Tan incorporated the real life details about Maugham into the story).  Also, after finishing this novel, I immediately wanted to read The Casuarina Tree to see how Maugham actually wrote the story of the Proudlock murder and trail (which itself was based on real life events) and how much of it jived with Tan's version (I know, I'm a nerd with this kind of stuff) — though unfortunately, I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy yet.

One of the other threads that Tan wove into the book was a backstory involving the famous Chinese revolutionary Dr. Sun Yat Sen (who really had visited Penang at the time, but in a different year).  There were also other aspects of Chinese history that Tan incorporated into the story, such as the Taiping Rebellion and the fall of the Qing dynasty.  Given the dearth of English language novels in existence that talk about such lesser known aspects of Chinese history (and actually get the facts straight to boot), I definitely appreciated what Tan did here.  Even though this particular story arc was secondary (the main arc was Maugham's visit and the story Lesley told him), it was, in my opinion, the best written part of the book (and certainly my favorite out of the several threads throughout the story).

Overall, this was quite an ambitious novel with multiple threads that made the story a tad convoluted in places, but I still enjoyed it immensely.  As I mentioned earlier, I definitely need to track down a copy of The Casuarina Tree so I can study the parallels — after that, I might just dig up my copies of Tan's previous 2 novels and get started on them (time permitting, of course).

Received ARC from Bloomsbury Publishing via NetGalley.

Review: Wuthering Heights (by Emily Brontë)

My Rating:  3.5 stars

First off, I have to admit that I actually finished this book a couple days ago, but had to put off writing the review not because of lack of time, but rather, I needed to work through the seriously mixed feelings I had toward this book as a whole.  This was actually my first time reading Emily Brontë's famous "story of unrequited love" and while part of me (the literary scholar side?) can see why this classic has been lauded and held in such high regard for over a century, another part of me (the rational reader side?) honestly finds it hard to understand the appeal of such a dark, depressing story where every single character is horrid and deplorable (more on this later). 

Yes, the writing is absolutely brilliant — the symbolism, the masterful use of language, the wholly developed characters, the vivid imagery, the complex and nuanced themes, the creative and clever way Brontë structures the narrative, the interesting usage of narrative voice, etc. — from a literary standpoint, this novel is a "dream" to study and analyze as a great example of brilliant and mesmerizing storytelling.  With that said though, when I take off my "scholar" hat and put on my "regular reader" one, the experience is very very different.  I'm the type of reader who puts a lot of weight on the characters in a story and as such, in order for me to be fully invested in the story, I need to have at least one character that I feel like I can root for.  Yes, I understand that every story will have its fair share of flawed and unlikable characters and that's perfectly fine — but the problem with this story in particular is that EVERY SINGLE character is not just unlikable, but exceedingly so, to the point that not even one character is worth rooting for. Seriously, every character in here is in some way mean, spoiled, cruel, selfish, hypocritical, vindictive, violent, self-absorbed, abusive, etc. (I could go on, but you get the point) — though of course  Heathcliff tops them all by being downright evil as well (it's not a coincidence that he is compared to the Devil at various points in the story).  Based on their actions and behavior. I honestly could not bring myself to care about any of the characters (not even Nelly or Lockwood, who were somewhat more tolerable in the grand scheme of things, but still…), which unfortunately made this a brutal and deeply unpleasant read for me.  

Given the above, I'm actually glad that my first experience reading this was in a group setting (again for one of my literature classes), as being able to talk through the problematic elements as well as getting more background context did help to blunt some of the unpleasantness to some extent (though not completely of course).  In this light, I definitely don't recommend picking this one up individually as a "leisure" read, as it's best read in an environment where the events that happen can be parsed and discussed within context (in my opinion at least).

Regarding the rating — to be honest, I agonized over this for quite some time.  From a writing / literary scholarship perspective, this one definitely deserves 5 stars…but at the same time, from a reading experience (unpleasant) and "how did this book make me feel" (frustrated and miserable) perspective, my irritability with all the characters and not being able to stand any of them definitely give me pause.  In the end, I decided to go with the "happy medium" of 3.5 stars.   I'm pretty sure I won't re-read this on my own accord like I do with Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (speaking of which, for some reason, people like to compare both novels as in a similar vein — a sentiment I vehemently disagree with, but that's a whole other topic altogether). If circumstances require me to reference Wuthering Heights in the future, I'll probably just skim it so I can avoid the torture of having to endure these frustrating characters again.

Review: Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Brontë)

My Rating:  5 stars

Catch-up review #4

Charlotte Bronte's most famous novel Jane Eyre is one of those brilliantly written classics that never fails to leave me in a state of awe, no matter how familiar I am with the story and its characters.  Indeed, I've re-read this novel too many times to count over the past couple decades, yet upon each re-read, I either come away with some detail that I didn't notice in prior read-throughs, or I'm drawn to a different nuance in the narrative that shifts my interpretation of the text in certain aspects.  This time around, re-reading the novel in a group setting (for one of my literature classes) enhanced my reading experience in a profound way – so much so that, weeks later, I'm still thinking about some of the in-depth discussions we had on various topics, from the themes, symbolism, motifs, to the story structure and masterful writing.  

This is a novel that's powerful and poignant and upon each re-read, it has the ability to make me feel as though I'm on an emotional roller coaster ride, experiencing the ups and downs of Jane's life as though I were right there beside her (and the ending moves me to tears EVERY.SINGLE.TIME).  Most significantly, it's not often that I encounter a novel where I feel every element (from the writing to the characterization to the execution of the story, etc.) is done pretty much flawlessly – well, this novel definitely occupies one of the top spots on my "epitome of perfection" list.

Unlike my other reviews, I intend to keep this one relatively short — partly because this novel has been so widely read and studied (and everyone knows the story already) that I feel there's nothing really I can say in a review that will add much to the conversation (or do justice to the brilliance of the novel).  With that said though, there's actually a personal reason why Jane Eyre has particular meaning for me.  The first time I read the novel was back in junior high, when it was assigned reading in my English class, alongside another famous novel:  Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.   I was already an avid reader at the time, but mostly of books that I chose myself for "leisure" reading; in essence, these two novels would be my first true exposure to "classics" — but unfortunately I had heard so many "horror stories" about what the experience of reading classics would be like (ie: boring, irrelevant, too daunting, etc..) that I was honestly a bit put off.  But I persisted of course, and ended up falling in love with both novels — so much so that they (both novels) instilled in me a subsequent love for studying classics, but more importantly, they ignited the spark in me that made me realize I wanted to pursue writing creatively.  To this latter point, after reading both novels, I was inspired to try writing a short story that combined elements from both (which, to my surprise, ended up winning a writing contest that year).  Since then, both JE and P&P have become mainstays in my life — two novels that I re-read consistently and will forever remain "favorites of all time" for me.