What We Were Promised

From the Publisher:

After years of chasing the American dream, the Zhen family has moved back to China. Settling into a luxurious serviced apartment in Shanghai, Wei, Lina, and their daughter, Karen, join an elite community of Chinese-born, Western-educated professionals who have returned to a radically transformed city.

One morning, in the eighth tower of Lanson Suites, Lina discovers that a treasured ivory bracelet has gone missing. This incident sets off a wave of unease that ripples throughout the Zhen household. Wei, a marketing strategist, bows under the guilt of not having engaged in nobler work. Meanwhile, Lina, lonely in her new life of leisure, assumes the modern moniker taitai-a housewife who does no housework at all. She is haunted by the circumstances surrounding her arranged marriage to Wei and her lingering feelings for his brother, Qiang. Sunny, the family's housekeeper, is a keen but silent observer of these tensions. An unmarried woman trying to carve a place for herself in society, she understands the power of well-kept secrets. When Qiang reappears in Shanghai after decades on the run with a local gang, the family must finally come to terms with the past and its indelible mark on their futures.

From a silk-producing village in rural China, up the corporate ladder in suburban America, and back again to the post-Maoist nouveaux riches of modern Shanghai, What We Were Promised explores the question of what we owe to our country, our families, and ourselves.

My Thoughts:

This is not a YA book, although there is an adolescent character, however, when reading YA books, I often wonder where the adults are? What is going on in their lives that makes them seem so absent? What complexities of emotions plague them? Do they, like teens hold on to what ifs that keep them from focusing on the life they have now? When their own teens seem to intrude or push their way into their consciousness, how do they parent? 

This book starts to answer that by opening up the lives of Wei and Lina Zhen as well as their ayi (like a nanny?) Sunny. Adulting as an expat in this new China, as well as adulting in Shanghai for Sunny and sending most of her money home to her family in the countryside. . .feeling both home and not home, Chinese and not Chinese in this large city. . .the characters seem both rudderless and anchored in the past and old traditions. The prose is simple, the characters are sometimes cold and stoic, but their stories are aching and although I did not really love the characters, I could empathize with their humanity. 

Sky in the Deep

This is geared toward readers who like fast paced, girl power, woman warrior stories set in the northern climates similar to  the communities beyond the wall in Game of Thrones. The story starts in the middle of a clan war as Eelyn and her battle partner Maya from the Aska clans fight the Riki clans. These two teenagers are seasoned warriors who plow through the enemy ranks until Eelyn gets separated from Maya and is cornered by a massive and powerful Riki warrior. Just as Eelyn believes that he will kill her, she is saved by her brother, but she must be mistaken. She saw her brother die five years ago and this warrior who looks like her brother is wearing the armor of the enemy.

I labeled it fantasy-ish just because it is not really in an unrealistic setting or containing the kind of magic or fantastical creatures found in the genre, but as a fantasy buff, it contains enough of the elements to make this devour worthy.  Carve out enough time for this.

A digital advance copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review.

Number One Chinese Restaurant

Description:

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2018 by The Millions and Cosmopolitan

An exuberant and wise multigenerational debut novel about the complicated lives and loves of people working in everyone’s favorite Chinese restaurant.

The Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, is not only a beloved go-to setting for hunger pangs and celebrations; it is its own world, inhabited by waiters and kitchen staff who have been fighting, loving, and aging within its walls for decades. When disaster strikes, this working family’s controlled chaos is set loose, forcing each character to confront the conflicts that fast-paced restaurant life has kept at bay.

Owner Jimmy Han hopes to leave his late father’s homespun establishment for a fancier one. Jimmy’s older brother, Johnny, and Johnny’s daughter, Annie, ache to return to a time before a father’s absence and a teenager’s silence pushed them apart. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, are tempted to turn their thirty-year friendship into something else, even as Nan’s son, Pat, struggles to stay out of trouble. And when Pat and Annie, caught in a mix of youthful lust and boredom, find themselves in a dangerous game that implicates them in the Duck House tragedy, their families must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to help their children.

Generous in spirit, unaffected in its intelligence, multi-voiced, poignant, and darkly funny, Number One Chinese Restaurant looks beyond red tablecloths and silkscreen murals to share an unforgettable story about youth and aging, parents and children, and all the ways that our families destroy us while also keeping us grounded and alive.

My thoughts:

With the high praise and "Most Anticipated Book of 2018" label, I was hoping for a more entertaining novel. I really was craving for either the humor, angst and melodrama of a Joy Luck Club or a foodie book like The Last Chinese Chef. The issue was that I could not find any character that I wanted to root for. I could not find a character with enough redeeming qualities to care about. 

I know it is supposed to be darkly funny, I just don't get the humor. I think what I wanted to do was read this book to be entertained, but bitterness is a hard pill to swallow, even in fiction. 

Publication date: June 19, 2018

Advanced digital copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review. 

Yellow Crocus originally published in 2010 is a Kindle Unlimited option so I decided to read it again because I kind of just rushed through it the first time. 

From Amazon:

Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. Thus begins an intense relationship that will shape both of their lives for decades to come. Though Lisbeth leads a life of privilege, she finds nothing but loneliness in the company of her overwhelmed mother and her distant, slave-owning father. As she grows older, Mattie becomes more like family to Lisbeth than her own kin and the girl’s visits to the slaves’ quarters—and their lively and loving community—bring them closer together than ever. But can two women in such disparate circumstances form a bond like theirs without consequence? This deeply moving tale of unlikely love traces the journey of these very different women as each searches for freedom and dignity.

My take:
What struck me on reading this book again was that as a reader, I sometimes forget that I am living in a different reality and I try to judge the story and the actions of the characters by my own values living in these times. This time, I just let it unfold and I did not judge. Louise Rosenblatt, in the book Making Meaning with Texts, selected essays writes:

“The reader brings to the work personality traits, memories of past events, present needs and preoccupations, a particular mood of the moment and a particular physical condition. These and many other elements in a never-to-be-duplicated combination determine his response to the text.”  

I believe that is always true. I think re-reading the same book at a different time in my life gave me a different read of the book. I was not in the middle of working with my social studies colleague to create a slavery unit for our 8th graders. I am just reading a story to read a story, so the combination of memories, present needs, preoccupations and my mood at the moment created a different enough combination so that I could just enjoy the journey and look on as a fly in the wall as the story unfolded. I am happy to have met Mattie and Lisbeth.

Women Unbound Challenge

This is another challenge, which is not always a good thing for me because I seem to be getting overwhelmingly busy but I can't resist this one.

1. It was started on Twitter, and this is tangible evidence of the power of Twitter

2. It's a year long, so that works with the rhythms of my work year.

3. It's about the power of women - FABULOUS

4. I can combine my interest in minority lit. with women's lit., with non-fiction and YA lit to create the list for this challenge

The Women Unbound challenge runs between now and November 2010 so that is a whole year to read any book that focuses on women and their issues.  Like I said, I want to combine minority lit with women's lit with YA lit as well as non-fiction so I have some possible titles, but I'd love to collect recommendations that will specifically appeal to YA readers.


Some that I think qualify and are interesting for YA readers, but I'm not adding because I already read them:

Non fiction:
She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martydom of Cassie Bernall by Misty Bernall (Columbine)
Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family and Fighting to Get Back on the Board by Bethany Hamilton, Sheryl Burk and Rick Bundschuh (Shark bite)
Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah
Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Patillo Beals (Little Rock 9)

Fiction:
The Adoration of Jenna Fox  by Mary E. Pearson
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Skim by Mariko Tamaki (graphic)
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez
Chiggers by Hope Larson


Any recommendations? The only definite so far is Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins