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kellylhaslam 's review for:
Beautiful Country
by Qian Julie Wang
This is a memoir of Wang's early years in China as a native and in the United States as an immigrant. The content generally ends with Wang's first year of middle school right as the family makes a big change in their living situation.
This book is so many things. It offers a firsthand experience of what it is like to be an Asian immigrant and all that entails: learning another language/culture, reconciling one's native culture with a new one, dealing with prejudice, coping with the psychological burden of being caught, managing the realities of poverty, trying to ease the load for her parents, and how all the above materializes as trauma.
Wang is a talented and authentic writer. I was continually impressed by how well she could write through the eyes of a young girl. As an adult, we can forget that perspective and she was skillful in not only bringing the reader back to that youthful point of view but to the frame of reference of a young Asian immigrant. In addition, Wang was refreshingly honest even when it did not paint her or a family member in a positive light. This candid approach added richness and wholeness to her story. Finally, Wang's writing style sometimes had a poetic or metaphoric flair that made it read more like a novel than a memoir.
There were several heartbreaking scenes in the book, but also some incredibly resilient ones. When Wang was first starting school in the United States, she did not know English. This prompted her to be quickly moved out of the regular classroom. However, she taught herself to read (or at least well enough) to get herself switched back after not too long. In this critical (perhaps even life-changing) moment, her determination and strength were inspiring. She also wrote convincingly about how books became a refuge for her.
Beautiful Country was a beautifully written memoir about some of the unspoken and dark sides of life as an immigrant. As Wang closes the book, she shares that her mindset of hiding is still hard to shake and has made her tired. Hopefully, she can feel more integrated and revived knowing that her courageous disclosure has created something powerful and necessary.
This book is so many things. It offers a firsthand experience of what it is like to be an Asian immigrant and all that entails: learning another language/culture, reconciling one's native culture with a new one, dealing with prejudice, coping with the psychological burden of being caught, managing the realities of poverty, trying to ease the load for her parents, and how all the above materializes as trauma.
Wang is a talented and authentic writer. I was continually impressed by how well she could write through the eyes of a young girl. As an adult, we can forget that perspective and she was skillful in not only bringing the reader back to that youthful point of view but to the frame of reference of a young Asian immigrant. In addition, Wang was refreshingly honest even when it did not paint her or a family member in a positive light. This candid approach added richness and wholeness to her story. Finally, Wang's writing style sometimes had a poetic or metaphoric flair that made it read more like a novel than a memoir.
There were several heartbreaking scenes in the book, but also some incredibly resilient ones. When Wang was first starting school in the United States, she did not know English. This prompted her to be quickly moved out of the regular classroom. However, she taught herself to read (or at least well enough) to get herself switched back after not too long. In this critical (perhaps even life-changing) moment, her determination and strength were inspiring. She also wrote convincingly about how books became a refuge for her.
Beautiful Country was a beautifully written memoir about some of the unspoken and dark sides of life as an immigrant. As Wang closes the book, she shares that her mindset of hiding is still hard to shake and has made her tired. Hopefully, she can feel more integrated and revived knowing that her courageous disclosure has created something powerful and necessary.