Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

55 reviews

mrsdarcylynn's review against another edition

3.0

3- “It was okay”

I think this was a pretty middle of the road memoir for me. The author narrates the entirety from the perspective of her childhood self and hits on some important issues with being the child of undocumented immigrants. 

For me, the lack of contextualization made this a weaker memoir. There is no hindsight, the author doesn’t bring any of her present understandings to bear on these past memories. You kind of just get the stories. Which is fine, but doesn’t make it a standout for me. I didn’t get a sense that there was a call to action, any insight, just observation. 

I also thought she lingered too long on some of the animal violence and excrement pieces of her childhood memories. There wasn’t much of a point to those parts of the stories. 

Overall, an okay read. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Excrement, Racial slurs, Animal cruelty, and Racism

dreamer626's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia

anniover's review against another edition

emotional inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Body shaming

Minor: Racial slurs, Animal cruelty, and Injury/Injury detail

sprucewillow's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

4.5

I loved listening to this, has horrible as the trauma was.

I wish there were more good things that happened but who knows if that was due to the author excluding them or good things really did just rarely happen.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Racism, Medical content, Child abuse, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Genocide

shortstackz's review against another edition

emotional sad slow-paced

3.5

This is a tough read for anyone who has experienced childhood food insecurity. Qian has a very lyrical writing style, leaving the reader to infer a lot about the inner lives of her parents throughout the story. It centers around the years where they were undocumented in the US, and I wish she delved more into the aftermath and unpacking of it. The lart chapter is a sprint through her adulthood, I would have liked to see how her life in Canada further contrasted against her Chinese and American lives. Particularly as she focused on her mother's journey throughout the memoir. It's easy to forget the political context of their move, especially when you see the glaring mysogyny of the father. A tough family dynamic between all involved, and a family struggling to find safe haven.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Misogyny, and Medical content

keekbeeek's review against another edition

DNF AT 58% 

This is an incredibly sad book. Within these pages we relive the trauma that Qian experienced as a child in America. It’s almost as if Qian wrote this book in order to process her childhood trauma— every single page and story was filled with visceral pain and trauma. May you feel grateful for your own childhood after reading this? Possibly. But at what cost?

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Child abuse, Sexual violence, and Pedophilia

menomica's review against another edition

For all those who remain in the shadows: May you one day have no reason to fear the light.

I guess I’m just not a nonfiction girlie. The prose was also bit 🫤. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Classism, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia

agnesjlopez's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs

Moderate: Classism

Minor: Animal cruelty

parasolcrafter's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

5.0

it always feels so odd to me, in some way, to talk about and rate memoirs because its somebodys life that youre, in essence, putting a number value on, so rather than try and do that ill just say that i loved the way Qian spoke about her life in the most intimate way that somebody can do; giving us the bad times, the good times, the scary times, and the times that maybe didnt paint her in the best light.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Deportation, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Misogyny, Violence, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Racism, Sexism, Chronic illness, Grief, Hate crime, Pedophilia, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Excrement

mildlypretentiousreader's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

“Our family was closest in the face of pain.”

“Why were we expected to speak English while praising Americans for even the crumbiest dribble of Chinese?” 

Qian Julie Wang’s Beautiful Country details her life as an undocumented immigrant in New York City. As a young child, Qian and her mother reunite with her father in “Mei Guo,” the Chinese word for America meaning “Beautiful Country.” Mei Guo turns out to be anything but beautiful. 

Told through the lenses of a child, we peek into the fearful and harrowing life of an undocumented Chinese immigrant family. The Wang family is forced to live 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Bullying, Body shaming, Classism, Deportation, Racial slurs, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Hate crime, Infidelity, and Stalking