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4.25 AVERAGE
4.25 AVERAGE
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
This book started off slow, and I had a harder time getting into it, but as it went one it pulled me in. This story is heartbreaking because of how she was treated as an immigrant. Whether illegal or not, people should not have to live that near poverty. Especially children. The trauma and stress she had to deal with as a child is just heartbreaking. A true book of resilience and how trauma continues to affect your life.
A voice that has been missing from the undocumented immigrant experience is finally here in the new memoir Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang. When we hear about Dreamers, the focus is usually on their present day life, but rarely do we hear what life was like when they were very young and newly arrived in America. In her debut work, Wang takes us back to her childhood when she first arrived in the United States where it was anything but the mythical Beautiful Country that she had heard of in China. Instead her new home was a precarious one because from the moment she landed in New York City, she was taught not to trust anyone for fear of deportation. Written in the voice of her seven-year-old self, Wang shares her immigration experience as she tried to make America her home while living a life cloaked in secrecy and anxiety. This book took my emotions on a rollercoaster ride. I was angered that such a small child had to work in a sweatshop. Saddened that she was intimately familiar with hunger as her family tried to survive on a $20 a week food budget. Proud of her academic accomplishments and disappointed she had to do it alone. Buoyed by her resilience. Delighted by her charm and ingenuity. Hurt that she felt she had to be the emotional strength of the family. Shame that a child would have to even experience any of this at all. What made Wang’s memoir even more heart-wrenching for me was that I saw it through the innocent eyes of a child rather than through the mature retrospection of an adult who because of hindsight understands the gravity and complexities of the past. Beautiful Country is definitely a memoir that I suggest those who want to understand the challenges immigrant children face, especially those undocumented, read. You will definitely be enlightened.
Thank you to #NetGalley and Doubleday Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to #NetGalley and Doubleday Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
On my journey to find a book that captures some of my own experiences growing up, I read this book. And while we are both children of immigrants and Asian American, our stories are totally different. Her story is fascinating and captivating, her strength and courage are remarkable, and I was interested in her story the entire time.
This is a book highlights subtle and often overlooked issues such as discrimination even between people of the same race, or power dynamics within workplaces. Yet through those obstacles we are reminded of the beauty of hope and the power of small positivity in elements such as Marilyn.
I enjoyed the bits of mandarin pinyin throughout the book - often authors write the characters and I can’t read them but within pinyin I can still understand.
I hope to be able to one day also share a story as powerful and worthy as Qian. She gives me hope!
This is a book highlights subtle and often overlooked issues such as discrimination even between people of the same race, or power dynamics within workplaces. Yet through those obstacles we are reminded of the beauty of hope and the power of small positivity in elements such as Marilyn.
I enjoyed the bits of mandarin pinyin throughout the book - often authors write the characters and I can’t read them but within pinyin I can still understand.
I hope to be able to one day also share a story as powerful and worthy as Qian. She gives me hope!
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
A debut memoir about an immigrant family who moves from China to New York in 1994. The author is seven years old when she arrives in what is the richest country in the world, but all she experiences is poverty and fear. This book details her experiences growing up in a one room apartment shared with nine other people; her hunger pangs while waiting for the free lunch given at school, which was often times her only full meal for the whole day; her parents labor in the sweatshops and their unstable relationship. It was interesting to read about her experiences, especially as I related to certain parts. But overall, I thought the book was just okay. I didn’t dislike it, but it didn’t wow me either. The writing just didn’t do much for me and I got kind of bored halfway through.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
This was very moving. The narrative pov is innocent eye which makes it challenging since the child’s attempts to understand her world, her parents and herself can be confused and bittersweet and even tragic. I hope there’s a sequel about becoming a lawyer and working in her own form with her spouse.
Affecting, inspiring, and powerful - Qian Julie Wang has written one of the most compelling memoirs I’ve ever read. She shares what it was like for she and her parents to leave a stable and relatively comfortable life in Shijiazhuang, China (her parents were both professors) and to live in hiding and deprivation as undocumented immigrants in New York.
Having arrived in the US when she was only 7-years old, she details the extreme poverty, humiliations, perpetual fear of being found out and deported, self-shrinking, family pressures and suffering they endured. She also describes the small joys, community care, and determination that sustained them during that period.
The fact that Wang taught herself English by reading children’s books, went on to graduate Yale Law School, and became a managing partner at her own firm as well as a published author serves as an inspiration to undocumented immigrants and everyone else. It’s also a reminder to practice compassion and empathy in our daily lives; we may never know what others are battling.
I wish every good thing for ‘Beautiful Country’ and Qian Julie Wang, and I admire the courage and vulnerability it took for her to process and share these parts of her life. Thank you to her, Doubleday/Penguin Random House LLC, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review an advanced reader copy before it’s release next month (9/7/21).
Having arrived in the US when she was only 7-years old, she details the extreme poverty, humiliations, perpetual fear of being found out and deported, self-shrinking, family pressures and suffering they endured. She also describes the small joys, community care, and determination that sustained them during that period.
The fact that Wang taught herself English by reading children’s books, went on to graduate Yale Law School, and became a managing partner at her own firm as well as a published author serves as an inspiration to undocumented immigrants and everyone else. It’s also a reminder to practice compassion and empathy in our daily lives; we may never know what others are battling.
I wish every good thing for ‘Beautiful Country’ and Qian Julie Wang, and I admire the courage and vulnerability it took for her to process and share these parts of her life. Thank you to her, Doubleday/Penguin Random House LLC, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review an advanced reader copy before it’s release next month (9/7/21).