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keegan_rellim_taylor 's review for:
Joan Is Okay
by Weike Wang
This book was interesting. The telling was very internal: quotation marks are never used. We're just seeing the world completely through the main character's eyes, almost passively. The character, Joan, does not reveal a lot. And what she does reveal is veiled by a very dry sense of humor. It's hard to get a full sense of her as a character. It feels like she's extremely introverted and may even be perceived as awkward by the people around her.
What keeps the story particularly compelling is that Joan is and Asian American woman in healthcare in New York City in 2019 and 2020. The sense of inevitability and fear for what she might face kept the tension rising, along with the lack of definitive chapter breaks. I felt propelled through this novel. Also, this is the second novel that I've read now that references the COVID-19 pandemic for the story . . . and it is a little surreal? unsettling? disorienting? I suppose this is how people have always felt in history when their life experiences become the past and they're still living.
This would be a good book club novel. There would be plenty of topics to discuss!
What keeps the story particularly compelling is that Joan is and Asian American woman in healthcare in New York City in 2019 and 2020. The sense of inevitability and fear for what she might face kept the tension rising, along with the lack of definitive chapter breaks. I felt propelled through this novel. Also, this is the second novel that I've read now that references the COVID-19 pandemic for the story . . . and it is a little surreal? unsettling? disorienting? I suppose this is how people have always felt in history when their life experiences become the past and they're still living.
This would be a good book club novel. There would be plenty of topics to discuss!