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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
medium-paced
I didn’t really know what to expect from this book. It was entertaining but not life changing. I thought I’d enjoy it being an ICU nurse myself but it ended up being more about Joan’s life than work. My favorite part was actually the last section of the book that reflected on COVID. I could relate to a lot of that from a medical perspective and I thought the author overwhelmingly got it right (the all-day PPE, the holding of iPads for patients to talk to families who weren’t allowed at the hospital, etc). Three stars.
Wang shows a light touch for a novel that focuses on grief, identity, belonging, and fraught family bonds. This was a lovely surprise. Joan is a great character, happy in her own ways and routines, which no one in her life can seem to understand. I enjoyed her company.
Wavering between 4 and 5 stars, I had to go with the 5. Writing-5. Characters-5. Ability to make me think Wang was a doctor-5. Story-4. It just ended a little too abruptly for me.
Thanks to @randomhouse and @netgalley for an electronic copy of #joanisokay.
Hmmmm…Do you ever get to the end of a book and feel like you might have missed something? That’s how I felt when I got to the end of
Hmmmm…Do you ever get to the end of a book and feel like you might have missed something? That’s how I felt when I got to the end of
Omg I love this book. I listened to it twice because I was listening as background the first time through and only realized it was funny half way through and wanted to listen to it again more closely. The ending is so real and so sweet. I will now be buying this book on audible as I have done for all my five star reads.
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Summary
Joan is a doctor.
Joan is the accidental second child of emotionally distant immegrant parents who moved back to China as soon as she started college.
Joan's home is the hospital ... until her father dies and the hospital tells her she hasn't taken enough time to grieve.
My Thoughts
The positives. This was a unique book, and I appreciated the opportunity it lent to look at life through someone else's eyes. There was a certain, soulful quality to the narration despite it being difficult to follow at times.
The negatives. There was no real plot and the book was ... well, unique (see above). Unique down to the choice to skip quotation marks for dialogue. The narrator is so disconnected from her own emotions that it is hard, as the reader, to fully understand or immerse into book.
Content
No romantic, violent, or religious content. There is infrequent swearing, almost all of which is f-bombs.
Joan is a doctor.
Joan is the accidental second child of emotionally distant immegrant parents who moved back to China as soon as she started college.
Joan's home is the hospital ... until her father dies and the hospital tells her she hasn't taken enough time to grieve.
My Thoughts
The positives. This was a unique book, and I appreciated the opportunity it lent to look at life through someone else's eyes. There was a certain, soulful quality to the narration despite it being difficult to follow at times.
The negatives. There was no real plot and the book was ... well, unique (see above). Unique down to the choice to skip quotation marks for dialogue. The narrator is so disconnected from her own emotions that it is hard, as the reader, to fully understand or immerse into book.
Content
No romantic, violent, or religious content. There is infrequent swearing, almost all of which is f-bombs.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Xenophobia, Grief