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shakakan's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia
carlys_currently_'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Animal cruelty, and Vomit
erebus53's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
I really don't know if I would have been able to manage this memoire without listening to the Audiobook, deftly narrated by the author. Being self-narrated it dodged a lot of messy casting issues such as having a reader who could not pronounce Chinese. I'm thankful for that.
Beautiful Country is a direct translation of the Chinese term for USA 美国 - Mĕiguó . Whenever I hear " Mĕiguó " spoken, I picture the characters in my mind. A year working at a Chinese Newspaper will do that to a nerdy lass who likes languages. I have always been struck by how ironic the name is. The memoire written is an awakening from a childhood where the author needs to protect herself over and again, from the perils of being an "illegal" migrant. When any false word could get you deported, you learn to say what people want to hear.
From sweat shops, and bigoted teachers, buying the cheapest food possible, and making do with forgaed treasures, this is a candid story of poverty, Racism, and survival. I found the descriptions reminded me of many things that have been part of my life, and drew stark contrast between some of my own experiences as a White New Zealander ( Pākeha ) living in a country with social security.
I expect that some of this recounting may be affronting to those who are unaware of the type of life that oppressed people can easily fall into. The story is that of someone who has survived, but doesn't really feel as saccharine as a lot of inspiration stories can be.
Beautiful Country is a direct translation of the Chinese term for USA 美国 - Mĕiguó . Whenever I hear " Mĕiguó " spoken, I picture the characters in my mind. A year working at a Chinese Newspaper will do that to a nerdy lass who likes languages. I have always been struck by how ironic the name is. The memoire written is an awakening from a childhood where the author needs to protect herself over and again, from the perils of being an "illegal" migrant. When any false word could get you deported, you learn to say what people want to hear.
From sweat shops, and bigoted teachers, buying the cheapest food possible, and making do with forgaed treasures, this is a candid story of poverty, Racism, and survival. I found the descriptions reminded me of many things that have been part of my life, and drew stark contrast between some of my own experiences as a White New Zealander ( Pākeha ) living in a country with social security.
I expect that some of this recounting may be affronting to those who are unaware of the type of life that oppressed people can easily fall into. The story is that of someone who has survived, but doesn't really feel as saccharine as a lot of inspiration stories can be.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Sexual harassment, Vomit, and Sexism
Moderate: Chronic illness, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Body shaming, Bullying, Deportation, Grief, Infidelity, Toxic friendship, and Violence
Minor: Pedophilia, Abortion, and Gun violence
aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
5.0
A memoir that reads like a really great fiction. Some of the things Wang experienced is incredibly difficult. From the constant fear of being deported to having a teacher discredit her based on her race and class to her mother having health problems. It's such a well written and narrated memoir and will be reading more from her.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Racism, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, and Vomit
aargot1's review against another edition
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Xenophobia, Racial slurs, Medical content, and Abandonment
alyssancoon's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
5.0
Beautifully written, very important story. I can not recommend this book enough!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia, Vomit, Racism, and Racial slurs
Minor: Abandonment
emzireads's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Animal cruelty, Vomit, Racism, and Grief
just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I'd seen a few reviews and/or TBR stacks featuring this memoir, but it shot to the top of my personal TBR when I read a twitter thread about a horrible interaction the author had with an attendee at an event at which she was on a speaker panel. It was infuriating to read about, so I'm sure I cannot imagine the anger living through it caused, and it made me want to pick this book up even faster, in my own small personal show of support (and spite). I don't know what that says about me, but make of it what you will.
Qian Julie Wang spent the first years of her life in China, but at age seven, she and her mother flew to join her father in Brooklyn, NY. For the next five years, the three lived in the "underground" of NYC reserved for undocumented immigrants. In this memoir, Wang recounts these years of her life in detail, from the family work in sweatshops to the poverty (and food insecurity) they faced to the lack of access to medical care to the adjustment to (low) academic expectations from teachers as a (low-income) immigrant to anti-Asian racism and Asian female fetishization to the ever-present threat of deportation (and the way that affects the ability to/comfort in reaching out for assistance in a variety of settings/situations).
As expected, an author-narrator memoir always brings a little something extra to the reading experience, so on top of what would have already been a phenomenal book, listening to the audio for this one made it that much more special of an experience. Because let me just start by very clearly stating that this was a phenomenal memoir. The detail and emotion in Wang's memories, the honesty and vulnerability in the experiences she shares, combined for a profound and visceral work of nonfiction.
The way Wang puts into words the day to day life of a young immigrant child, both in the small details and in the larger vibes, in particular the way they interpret the “shadows” their parents now carry and that fall over everything that was once familiar, is aching. The family's ever present fear (and related anxiety and stress) of being found out, found without papers, that infused every moment and decision, even for Wang as a child - it just puts one's own youthful experiences into such perspective. It was especially affecting to watch innocence in her perspective as it slowly eroded over her years in NYC, in particular as she writes about her role as a therapist and advisor and protector for parents who were equally (if not more) lost and adrift. The matter of factness with which she talked about choices like lying about getting food at school and surviving the resulting hunger pangs, just to help/protect them, is heartbreaking. Just, so much loss of childhood and the carelessness that should come with those years. At the same time, Wang shares the moments of light, the (small, and few-and-far-between) things that provided some much needed counterbalance, like trying pizza for the first time, the lights in the city during Christmas, itemizing the gifts she receives, her time in libraries, to great emotional effect.
Towards the end of this memoir, Wang takes some time to reflect on how it was only later, as an adult, that the full weight of what her childhood looked like, as an undocumented immigrant in NYC, really came into full understanding for her. She speaks to how the heaviness of those years will forever be a part of and shape who she is today in a way that cannot be fully escaped or grown out of, no matter "how far she's come" since then. And she explores the bars of circumstance and documents and fear and trauma, the way that those bars left her (and her parents) not knowing how to fully break free even once the option of safety is there. Readers are left with Wang's reflections on the challenges of acceptance and healing and reclaiming life, the reality of the scars of her childhood experiences making it hard to move forwards into the future with (very much deserved) grace for herself.
Wang brings the voice of her youth to life in these pages for the world to see, with uncompromising and sincere narration. A phenomenal memoir.
“She would say this more and more to me during our time to come in Mei Guo. Be silent. Say nothing. My voice no longer had a place.”
“But in the vacuum of anxiety that was undocumented life, fear was gaseous: it expanded to fill our entire world until it was all we could breathe.”
“I did not understand then that there are few things more activating than the quiet desperation of a dignified woman.”
“Our family was closest when facing pain.”
“How cruel it was that home could be so temporary.”
“…see us living her dream - leaving this awful, beautiful country for a different place, a world where we were just as human as everyone else.”
“…I thought about what happened when people and animals died. Where did this brain go that carried so many fears? Where did this heart go that pulsed with so much pain?”
“It is odd, the images that come to your mind once you know you'll never see any of it again.”
“The sunlight shines too brightly onto the fault lines the preceding five years had carved into our little family. Possibilities open anew before us, but we cannot see past the razor edges we had grown for protection in that beautiful country.”
“You cannot know that some things are not enough until you have them.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Racial slurs, Vomit, Medical content, Classism, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Toxic relationship and Animal cruelty
Minor: Emotional abuse
apworden's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Vomit, Fatphobia, Medical content, Chronic illness, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Sexual harassment, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Racial slurs
rillastone's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Racial slurs, and Racism
Moderate: Vomit