Typical American by Gish Jen

Typical American Reviews

• 
  Cassy

  This book should be required reading at my office.*
  
  I have long wondered how my Chinese clients pick their Americanized name. How does Xiangxin become John? And Wenxia become Sara? The book solves the mystery! They have the secretary at their college’s office of international education pick it for them. Said secretary rolls through a mental list of all her ex-boyfriends. It’s like spinning the wheel of fortune. Voila, Yifeng becomes Ralph! Even Ralph seems letdown by this process:
  
  Walking home, though, “Ralph” was less sanguine. Had he been too hasty? And sure enough, when he asked around later he found that the other Chinese students had all stuck with their initials, or picked names for themselves, carefully, or else had wise people help them. [Ralph and his colleague, Old Chao look up the meaning of “Ralph”.] A kind of dog, thought Ralph. Old Chao had “Henry”, which turned out to be the names of at least eight kings.
  
  This is a shrewd, understated read about an immigrant assimilating into American culture. There is much showing and little telling. It is a smart kind of funny. There are a few laugh-out-loud sections (comparing American breasts to Chinese burial mounds, for example), but I won’t call the book adventure-land entertaining. It is certainly readable, well-paced, and has big events, but the humor takes place on a deeper, ironic level. And the plot takes a few unexpected dark turns – I like to say it went “Taxi Driver” on me. Leo and I were actually debating if we thought the ending would be hopeful or depressing.
  
  As you would expect, there is considerable commentary on American culture. She touches on a wide variety of topics: buying houses you cannot afford, the obsession with keeping the lawns green, chasing big dreams at the expense of reality, and so on. But the critique feels gentle as the Chinese characters are not standing on the sideline dressed in pristine white. They are embroiled in it all.
  
  I would recommend this book. But if I had cool shelves like Ceridwen, I would put this book on a “for-me-maybe-not-for-you” shelf. The book hits on some major components of my life: immigration and academia. It gives me more compassion for my clients. And my husband is an engineering professor. We started dating when he was wrapping up his PhD program. So I can sympathize with the graduate school section and then the tenure process. I also identify too much with Ralph’s awkwardness, stormy-clouds outlook, and list-making obsession.
  
  I went to a fancy reading series event featuring
  Gish Jen and
  Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Gish said she became a writer through a process of elimination. (Roughly: nope, don’t want to be doctor. Engineering, no thanks. Okay, law school isn’t for me. Writing, maybe…). I was impressed by her poise and how she changed accents as she read different passages from her new book,
  World and Town.
  
  Other than that, I don’t remember much of substance. I didn’t take notes. I was distracted. The interviewer’s skirt kept creeping further up her thighs the whole interview. I sat there mortified and oddly transfixed. Instead of nodding sagely and processing Gish’s thoughtful responses, I’m staring at this lady’s pale skin the whole time. (In my defense, it was at eye level.) I kept thinking “stop fidgeting, you are making it crawl up higher!”
  
  *I work at a large law firm. My team handles corporate immigration cases. If a company wants to transfer a manager from their subsidiary in Europe to their headquarters in the U.S., they call me. Therefore, I spend 8+ hours a day talking to less eccentric versions of the main character, Ralph, who is a Chinese foreign national coming to the U.S. to study engineering.
• 
  Nancy

  So I didn’t technically finish the book, but I did get up to page 90. And although I had break time to finish it—or at least get halfway through, as that’s how I’ve always judged books—I didn’t feel like it at all.
  
  Usually, I love stories about Chinese Americans—because that’s me. I can totally relate to that. Anyway, that’s what this book is about: a boy called Ralph Chang who makes his way to America to study and get a degree. He later marries Helen and his sister Theresa comes to live with him. And that’s all I know as I haven’t read so far.
  
  I probably shouldn’t even do a review for this, or keep it in the “Read” shelf, but I’d already added it to my list so might as well write something. The thing about this book is that it’s all very confusing to me. From what I’ve read so far, it has never dug deeply into Ralph and Helen’s relationship, how they met, how they got married, and whatever else that happened between those two periods of time. I’m just not sure how they became lovers or whether they had chemistry with each other in the first place. It’s like the characters pop in so suddenly—as if from thin air—without an explanation, a brief one, or one that’s way too unnecessary. So Reason Number One: lack of character development or depth in relationships. It’s not supposed to be a cliché or a stereotypical world and I failed to see that between Ralph and Helen and Theresa.
  
  As well, the writing is kind of weird. I won’t say it is bad writing but the sentences and words don’t make me understand how this book can be described as an “engrossing story that resonates with wit and wisdom”. Really, I don’t. Part of the reason might be because I left the book unfinished but 90 pages is nearly halfway into the book and should’ve developed into some sort of importance. But all I got was a struggle as I tried to let the words sink into my brain and keep an open-mind. I want to like the story, because obviously, praises must count for something, but I ended up being completely bored. So Reason Number Two: lack of engaging and easy to follow storyline.
  
  And I really didn’t like Ralph. Especially the way he treated Helen, and that particular part that really made me want to punch the dude—when he said he wished he could solve his marriage problems by just taking a concubine. I’m just like, what the heck? How can I feel sympathy for a protagonist like that? Granted, he might have changed towards the second half of the story, but clearly, the character developments of the novel weren’t compelling enough for me to want to read any further. So Reason Number Three: uninteresting characters that were written to represent something “good” on paper but actually turned out to be selfish and utterly annoying to even like.
  
• 
  Allie

  Wow. Gish Jen certainly does not give the Chinese immigrant experience a typical treatment. Her story just gets more and more outrageous as it goes on; I was like, "WTFrankfurters" the whole time. Ralph, who at the beginning is naive and endearing, towards the end becomes such a comical character that we become very distanced from him (or at least, that was how I felt). It was amusing and apalling (mostly appalling), especially the antagonist Grover. I knew he was coming back. Booo.
  
  Having said this, I think that Gish Jen's is a really successful satire: absurd, insightful, uncomfortable, & infuriating, with lots of commentary that we receive not through any particular lines of the novel, but through its narrative. The pursuit of the American dream by Ralph, Theresa, & Helen yields both success and disaster. And even though a lot of strange things happen in the plot, it is still the experience: trying to hold onto family, reluctantly borrowing from American tradition and eventually making it as much a part of their lives as the Chinese, developing Chinglish and deciding how to raise children. I like how Ralph, Theresa, and Helen at many points are the “typical Americans” that they had looked down upon when they first came. All of the supposed "typical American" things seem to be more “typical human” as the characters find themselves becoming them.
  
  Overall, this was a very interesting reading experience. I can't say that I liked it, but it was undoubtedly good. I am thinking about picking up Mona in the Promised Land to see how Gish Jen deals with her second-generation Chinese-Americans (that's me! haha). And a young Chinese girl converting to Judaism intrigues me quite a lot.
• 
  S.

  Gish Jen's Typical American surveys a broad range of immigrant Chinese American experience, and is populated by round, psychologically complex characters interacting in believable and striking ways. Jen's flaw as an author might only be a flaw of the Chinese American community itself, a tendency to presume "too much democracy" and too much equality in a country that has a bit more complex melding of Western tradition, class division and attachment to its roots than appears at first sight. Various friends of various world backgrounds have commented that Chinese Americans while neither racist, overly educated, not criminal nor intellectual, not too aggressive nor far passive, seem to assume that everyone in America has jumped off a boat into New York Harbor and built up their lives from absolute zero beginnings. I had the opportunity to go see the author speak at a public reading, but what's the point when in nobody in my family in three generations has majored in either economics or pre-med?
  
  
  
  I'm not sure my impressions of the supposed "model minority" are universally positive. there are good things about Chinese culture, the traditional medicine, the knowledge of herbs and spiritual balance, but what of the negative features of the Chinatowns, the crowding, the lack of hygiene, the materialism?
• 
  Emi Yoshida

  This was not a joy to read. Up until the last 12 pages it all just kept plodding along heavily, the characters didn't make me laugh and I usually find Asian immigrants HILARIOUS.
  
  Yifeng (Ralph) Chang comes to the US from China to study engineering. He starts out proud of his virtuous ethical ideals and then they disappear. Same thing happens to his sister Theresa and eventual wife Helen. Ralph befriends a Chinese-American named Grover Ding, a millionaire with questionable morals of his own, and it bothers me that all these Chinese people are depicted as such cheaters on so many levels. It is an interesting take on the American Dream, but very harsh and ugly.
  
  Without giving it away, the final 12 pages are swift and bloody and disastrous; for me not having liked these characters it felt like heavy-handed retribution.
• 
  Beatrice Gormley

  This is probably the best book I've read about the immigrant experience. Three young Chinese come to New York at the beginning of the Communist revolution in China. They only intend to stay a few years, but Mao Zedong's takeover strands them in the United States permanently, as they gradually and reluctantly realize. Each of the three struggles in their own way to learn the language and customs of their new country, to earn a living, to come to terms with the ways they have changed. Poignantly, they share jokes about how "typical Americans" behave, but all the while they themselves are transforming, with sometimes disastrous consequences, into typical Americans.
• 
  Anthony

  Funny, sad, true, and incredibly entertaining,
  Typical American has remained near the top of my list of all-time favorite books ever since I first read it several years ago. There's a clear-eyed, generous, tough-minded heart at the center of this novel about a Chinese immigrant's experience of trying to make a life and a family for himself in our wonderful but profoundly complicated country.
• 
  Jennifer

  3.5 stars. Loved the writing - Gish Jen is a great storyteller w/ a real way w/ words. That said, this was the kind of book that gets more and more depressing by the minute w/ people making terrible decisions left and right. I often really like books like that, but this time it just made me sad. Still, worth the read.
• 
  Annika LaOrange

  *EARLY SPOILERS
  
  Typical American is a book with a very unique, entertaining writing style. It is complex and uses many unnecessary, but pleasant, details. I really enjoy Gish Jen’s writing style and how it sort of mimics someone telling a story, or thinking out loud. It sounds as if someone is going on, and on, and on about something they know a lot about. I think Gish Jen is a wonderful and creative writer that has her own particular literary formula in her work. She has, over these past few months, become my favorite author.
  I like the themes of her writing as well. The themes surrounding culture and adapting to culture. This book does not attempt to sugarcoat what life was like for Chinese immigrants going to American universities in the 50’s and 60’s. In comparison to another book by Gish Jen, World and Town, I think that I like this one more. I feel like this one has an edge that World and Town does not have. It is slightly darker, more real.
  The story follows Ralph, a man who moved to America to get his PhD and become a doctor, or maybe an engineer. It is a very rocky road from there, as he is not used to America at all. He lost his visa, as he forgot to renew it. Ralph had to quit going to school. He hides from the police, hopping from apartment to apartment. He harms himself, and at some point even attempts to kill himself. I enjoy the more serious themes as well. I like how the book puts emphasis on Ralph’s misunderstanding of American culture and lack of social awareness at some points. It shows that he really was in a state of mania for a majority of the preposition. I would like to note that most of this happens within the first 50 pages of the book.
  The author uses many literary devices in her story. One is metaphors. An example of a metaphor in this story would be “Now the servants chattering became a choir in a silent movie, a line of O mouths, or a school of fish, blub blub.” It also uses personification. An example of personification in this story would be, “Above him, the moon hid bright-faced in the trees.” Anaphora is also utilized, “”Not only do I know who you are, I know what you are.” continued Pinkus. This time Ralph moved to let someone by. “Not only do I know you’re a liar, I know you’re a sneak.”” The author uses analogies as well! “... he watched the blood cross back, no thicker, no more vibrant, than that of a chicken.” It also uses anadiplosis, an example is, “But little Lou didn’t come, didn’t come, didn’t come; and then Ralph didn't care if he came or not.” Those are just five of the many devices used by the author.
  Another small thing I would like to note is the inclusion of Chinese pinyin in the book. To emphasize the culture, the author includes the pinyin of certain Chinese phrases that apply to situations. “Xiang banfa. An essential Chinese idea-- he had to think of a way.”
  The characters were diverse and well written, with the American stereotypes and all. There was a point in the book that was made where Ralph found an American woman that was sought after there to be gross and a “hag,” but as time passed he started to find her more attractive and even had a little spark with her, until she was fired from her job and moved. I find that to be a very interesting part of the book, that really does add on to the theme of culture in this book.
  I really, really love a book that leaves me thinking when I set it down. It leaves open ends for me to try and decipher the meaning of, and I enjoy deciphering those open ends. It’s the kind of book that leaves me fulfilled.
  
• 
  Alex Klimkewicz

  Chinese immigrants assimilate into America. Love, loss, and cultural (mis)understanding.
  I read this for an online English course. What follows is my discussion board post covering this novel:
  
  American Dream, Chinese Nightmare
  Ralph Chang comes to the United States to get an education, vowing to keep his head down (hardly looking at the sights during his transcontinental train ride) and dedicate his spare time to cultivating virtue, honoring his family, and keeping away from girls (Gish 6). In time, he loses his virtuous aim and falls into an endless cycle of following the American dream. What that American dream entails in ambiguous success and ill-defined happiness, and rather than being content with his life as a tenured professor, Ralph dreams of larger greatness, propelling him to neglect his family and commit criminal behavior. Ralph and the other Changs go from criticizing the typical Americans and promising “they wouldn’t “become wild” here in America” (67) to doing some quite outlandish actions stemming from the unhappiness wrought by American society on their family members. They (Ralph, Helen, and Teresa) are negatively influenced by the Americans in their lives. Would Ralph have envisioned the automobile as a source of liberation or use it as an expression of his anger if not for his memorable joy ride with Grover? Although Teresa admits that concubine is a Chinese position within the family structure, she doesn’t truly adopt this title, and instead lives out a more romantic Americanized affair with Old Chao. Helen seems less actively tarnished by her involvement in American society, and one could even make the claim that she becomes empowered through doing things like fixing the furnace and exercising her muscles for the first time in her life. However, even Helen is seduced by Grover and loses her virtue to a character personifying unbridled greed and ambition.
  
  Somewhere in the course of their family building the Changs lost their way and became by seduced by the American dream. They started on a trend of upward mobility and were not content to settle. Ralph moves his family out of a dilapidated apartment and moves them “out to the suburbs, land of greater promise” (Gish 183). He compares his own life to the lives lived by his neighbors and his successful acquaintance Grover. There is the recognition that the rules of life are freer in the United States than they were in China, limitless success to those who work hard enough. I think that Ralph’s mediation on American soil nicely embodies this idea: “A lawn like this was America. It was the great blue American sky, beguiling the grass upward. It was the soil, so fresh, so robust, so much better quality than Chinese soil; Chinese soil having been prevailed upon for too many thousands of years.” (159). While America offers more personal liberties than their native China, the Changs discover that they can’t keep up with the Joneses. Ralph wants more than the safety and security of his university job. He desires greater success, and to him this means greater material wealth, because, “in this country, you have money, you can do anything. You have no money, you are nobody. You are Chinaman!” (199). Ralph gambles with his family’s fortune and embraces a man who in a typically American fashion leeches onto the Chang family and leaves havoc in his wake.
  
  Would the Changs have been better off without Grover in their lives? Would Ralph have settled for his tenured professorship? Would Teresa or Helen have succombed to affairs? We can only speculate, but as far as wondering what the Changs get up to after the resolution of Typical American, we can look to other Gish Jen stories. I stumbled upon the short story “In the American Society” in my junior English literature textbook. This tale, told from an adolescent Callie’s perspective, relates her father’s trials and tribulations at a new business, a pancake house. Sadly, the Changs still seem seduced by the American dreams of the image of success because Helen convinces them to join a country club. Their attempt doesn’t end well when Ralph has an altercation with another man there. This supplementary story reinforces the idea pursuit of an amorphous ideal of success can only lead one to failure. The ground is rocky and poor, like that built on the Chang’s Chicken Palace. The bottom falls out all too easily, but with close family ties, maybe someone like Ralph could one day come to the realization that with his education, his home, and his family, he had achieved the American dream long before wanting more, more, more.
  
  The article by Michelle Asha Cooper and Robert Teranishi sets out to tell the truth about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) as model minorities in America. The perception that AAPI are at an advantage (academically, socially, politically, etc.) is misleading. Celebrating the achievements of stereotypes diminishes the efforts of those who do not reach a certain identified marker of success. I found it interesting that the idea of AAPI as a model of minority behavior arose out of further denigration of African Americans. Given recent political developments in this country, it is wildly clear that to be perceived as a typical (successful) American, one must wear a certain skin color, worship a certain way, reside in a certain tax bracket, or sport an outrageous coiffure. What will it take to redefine the nature of race relations so that these value judgements don’t matter? What could make every individual in this melting pot of ours a typical American?
  
  Cooper, Michelle Asha & Robert Teranishi. “The Truth about ‘Model Minorities.’” Forbes, 5 Aug. 2010,
  http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/05/mode... Accessed 31 Jan. 2017.
  
  Gish, Jen. Typical American. 1991. Vintage Books, 2008.
• 
  Preston

  It was a bit of a struggle to convince myself to continue reading this book at times, but it entertained some.
• 
  Jeannie L

  read for school, did not enjoy it. Little explanation on how Ralph and Helen even have chemistry, storyline rushes forward. Unnecessary Chinese volcab inserted. Save ur time and souls ppl.
• 
  Jennifer

  I couldn't finish this book. The writing style was suffocatingly bland and I didn't care about any of the characters: Ralph, Helen, Theresa. They represent a very narrow slice of the Chinese American experience: privileged, overeducated and smug, possibly like the author. I couldn't relate to any of them, and whatever racism they must have experienced coming to America in the 1950s is ridiculously minimized and glossed over. Chinese-Americans are still seen as "foreign" 50 years after WWII so to call them "Typical American" is to trivialize the racism and hostility Asian immigrants still face today. It's false and that's why so much of "Typical American" feels dishonest and unengaging - the author refuses to take a hard look at the lives of real immigrants and prefers the fantasy version of America instead.
• 
  MelioraBooks

  3.5 stars [Review to come]
• 
  Kellyn Brooks

  The following is a discussion post I wrote for my Women and Gender Studies intro course regarding this book, which we were asked to read for our "big assignment":
  
  I would like to take this opportunity to air some of my grievances about Typical American. I mean this as an opinionated response, and I don’t mean to offend anybody who enjoys this book at all.
  
  I had been looking forward to starting to read this book, because I tend to enjoy books about immigrants and foreigners who experience American culture for the first time. I initially thought it was an odd choice for a women and gender studies course, but as we began discussing intersectionality as it relates to feminism, I started to get excited to read it and examine the feminist and cultural underpinnings in the story. I especially like to hear Asian people’s experiences in America, since I used to tutor Chinese and Korean people of varying ages in English speaking, reading, and writing.
  
  However, I’ll admit I am about halfway through the book and I am not enjoying it at all. The primary reason is the prose, or the way the story is told. Typical American is described on Goodreads as “a superbly engrossing story that resonates with wit and wisdom” but I don’t see that at all. The prose is more often confusing, rushed, and not engaging than wise or witty. It’s like the author spends too much time developing scenes that are neither important nor interesting and does not take care to develop ones that illustrate what the characters want or where the plot is going.
  
  I also dislike the characters simply because they are not well-written or interesting or lifelike. It is difficult for me to care about them as people or about what happens to them in the story. I don’t mind that at times they behave unethically and selfishly; many excellent books portray flawed characters. The difference is, however, that we become interested in these characters, either because of or despite these flaws. That is where the prose needs to come in to paint a picture of interesting, lifelike characters. For example, Rubeus Hagrid from Harry Potter is one of my all-time favorite characters. He is incredibly flawed; he is irresponsible and reckless, but the way he is written, as well as the times when he redeems himself, makes him enjoyable to read about.
  
  This is not to say that the book does not have its instances where feminism, culture, and other ideas can be identified and examined. I’m just not enjoying the journey to get to those instances.
• 
  Kkraemer

  This might be one of the best books I've ever read. Also one of the funniest.
  
  Chang Yifeng was the son of a traditional family who valued sons, and his ears stuck out, so he went through childhood with his hands over his ears so that no one would make fun of him. He also missed hearing things. This combination, avoiding ridicule and information, defined his life..
  
  He came to the U.S. and accidentally took the name "Ralph" to become Ralph Chang, a fairly unmelodious name for a man who has the kind of passivity, cluelessness, passion, and anger that define so many Americans. By turns, he is successful (almost in opposition to his own efforts) and taken as a fool. He lives at the edge of what he assumes from Confucian China and what he sees in the bright lights and big city of the U.S. He worships a guy who seems to have figured things out, Grover Ding, a Chinese American combination of John Wayne and God.
  
  This is the story of his life, his family, his work, his failures. "..sometimes after work, Ralph watched TV now...never bothering to turn the channel, simply letting the words and images wash over him. The stories were nothing like his story; for this, he felt a gratitude bordering on love. When the time came for him to turn the TV off, he watched the images waver and disappear as thought it were a real world, all his world ought to have been, that was sucked back into the set...a story with one character, doing nothing."
  
  Jen's characters, descriptions, dialogues, and reflections are saber sharp and brilliant, often so funny that the images elicit not just chuckles, but laughter.
  
  What an amazing book.
• 
  Banuta

  This is an impressive first novel and Gish Jen has gone on to write many others. I'm impressed above all by Jen's style: she holds all the strands of her story tightly in her hand and lets the characters wander this way and that, making us catch our heads in dismay or lean forward with anticipation. Comedy is a hard taskmaster and there are times when her brush strokes are too thick and I almost want to quit reading -- but then the story pulls me forward, or simply her arresting language, the metaphors like "they had tiptoed through the talk as though the bedroom of a fitfully sleeping child," who can argue with that? I'm not sure I believe the hapless Ralph can become as violent as he did, but maybe that's how it happens. In any case: bravo Jen.
• 
  Virginia

  This is a dark, dark book. A newly immigrated group of Chinese students become family and take on the worst aspects of our culture during the 60’s and 70’s. I found the adoption of deadly sins hard to believe and the protagonist’s leaving academia for the tax fraud possibilities of a chicken franchise seemed absurd. The small lies and major deceptions seem also implausible but perhaps I don’t know the truth.
  
  As to the characters, most are unlikable, even before their Faustian acts.
  
  It feels like this book is playing into the kinds of stereotypes promoted by early cinematic depictions of the Chinese. As I write this, I just took it down a star.
  
  
• 
  MaupassantGuy

  The cover said it was going to be, and I am writing it by heart here, so take it cum mica salis, "wildly funny". Girl, this is hardly amusing. It's heartwrenching, beautiful, epigrammatic, but nowhere near funny. With the great American dream as a toile de fond, a family grow to be fully American, while teaching us a valuable lesson (the Chinese way, so not with their words, rather with their actions) about the plethora of possibilities that offer the human relations. So complicated, yet so sublime. Core topic: love no more, and no less. Last caveat: don't try to read this if you are feeling a bit low. It will add a layer of melancholy to your mood.
• 
  Joanne Kelleher

  We read this for our library book club. It is the story of a family of Chinese Immigrants circa 1949. Ralph, the main character, comes to the USA as a university student. We watch him transform from a fearful student to the "typical American" that he mocked when he was first starting out. It was a tough read. Even though Ralph was hard to like, I felt for him as his world started to unravel. It was interesting to see what this Chinese family perceived as "typical" American behavior.
• 
  Liz

  I'm fond of books with protagonists I like and this book had none. That said, everybody had foibles that I can relate to, but the number of cringe-worthy situations almost made me put this book down. How can bright people do stupid things? The story I should have - wanted to - absorb was the difficulties of being an immigrant, but the interpersonal drama mostly eclipsed that message. I'm conflicted about whether to pursue Jen's other books.
• 
  David Velasco

  This book presents a telling portrait of an immigrant chasing the American dream that is at times funny, grim, and depressingly real. Ralph and his family are the type of characters you root for even through their missteps and questionable decisions. I was a little bit underwhelmed by the ending, and the story carried a (sometimes) necessary awkwardness throughout, but overall Jen's writing was enjoyable, carrying the overarching theme of xiang banfa, to find a way.
• 
  Sharon Falduto

  I heard this author's name somewhere, so when I saw it on the shelf, I thought, "Oh. Right. I have heard of this person, which means they must be good." This is the story of a Chinese immigrant who comes to America and can't really find his place, deals with trying to assimilate into a new culture, and interacts with some unusual characters. I think I expected more from this book than I got; I never quite felt like I had any traction with the main character or liked him very much.
• 
  Kym Davidson

  I tried. I really tried. I made it to p 100 or so. I left it on our hotel book shelf in Cuzco. When the girls came on the scene, it got a little more interesting, but I felt I was on a totally different wave length as the author and characters. I did not appreciate how it was written or enjoy that it mostly made absolutely no sense to me. I’m glad others could relate. I felt like I was reading a foreign language in English. Maybe that was the point( ?)
• 
  Jarrett Neal

  DNF-ed on page 177. I was thoroughly disappointed in this novel. Uninteresting, flat characters, a banal plot, dialogue like white noise, and Jen's erratic writing style made this the least successful immigrant story I've ever read. Jen has all the components for a daring, insightful immigrant story here, but she just doesn't deliver. Pity.
• 
  Joanne

  Sorry I didn’t like this book. I chose it to try and get an understanding but all it did was annoy me. It was slow and boring and Ralph is really annoying. The whole choosing a name thing is ok but after being to China I just don’t think they do it like that anymore. Our tour guide chose his name based on Wilson from castaway.
• 
  Danny Graham

  By the end of this book, I felt like I really enjoyed it, but when I started looking back through it for my class, I realized how insufferable most of the characters are and how much I did not like the early parts of the book. However, I did like some of the ideas it had about how powerful nostalgia can be and how it can warp our perceptions of the past.
• 
  The

  Bittersweet
  
  I enjoyed the first part more than the second half. The challenges faced by new immigrants, the resilience they demonstrated in overcoming them and the things they learnt along the way. Some parts felt like they were of a later era and not of when the book meant to place them in. The lAnguage was simple.