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A review by brooke_review
Holding Pattern by Jenny Xie
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I organize my reading year by theme, and in honor of Mother’s Day, May is dedicated to books revolving around motherhood and mother-child relationships. From the blurb, it would seem that debut author Jenny Xie’s Holding Pattern, about a daughter who returns home after dropping out of her graduate program only to learn that her mom is not the same woman she left behind when she went to college, would fit perfectly into my May reading theme. Fit it does, but with some caveats.
Although you may try not to, it is difficult to go into a novel without any expectations, when said expectations are set up in the book summary, which I always read before diving into a novel. Relationships with mothers are often complicated, so it is a fascinating subject to explore in a novel - I had high hopes for this book based on this premise. This novel had so many intriguing, complicated mother-daughter topics to explore, being that we have an adult daughter moving home and taking on a controversial job while her immigrant mother remarries a wealthier man.
However, despite Xie’s best efforts, this novel just does not go deep enough for a reader like me. I love books that uncover the truths about life and relationships; the ones that dig deep into the topics that everyone is thinking about, but few are expressing. A complex mother-daughter relationship seems like prime breeding ground to discover some life-affirming truth, but Xie suffers from the debut author problem of not developing her novel enough. This book stays pretty much surface level through out, and failed to touch me on an emotional level. It reminded me of a rom-com, except of the mother-daughter variety, meaning that it was written more for light entertainment than soul searching.
Holding Pattern is a solid debut, albeit one that could have been better with a bit more spit and polish. It needs some refinement and nuance to truly be great.
Although you may try not to, it is difficult to go into a novel without any expectations, when said expectations are set up in the book summary, which I always read before diving into a novel. Relationships with mothers are often complicated, so it is a fascinating subject to explore in a novel - I had high hopes for this book based on this premise. This novel had so many intriguing, complicated mother-daughter topics to explore, being that we have an adult daughter moving home and taking on a controversial job while her immigrant mother remarries a wealthier man.
However, despite Xie’s best efforts, this novel just does not go deep enough for a reader like me. I love books that uncover the truths about life and relationships; the ones that dig deep into the topics that everyone is thinking about, but few are expressing. A complex mother-daughter relationship seems like prime breeding ground to discover some life-affirming truth, but Xie suffers from the debut author problem of not developing her novel enough. This book stays pretty much surface level through out, and failed to touch me on an emotional level. It reminded me of a rom-com, except of the mother-daughter variety, meaning that it was written more for light entertainment than soul searching.
Holding Pattern is a solid debut, albeit one that could have been better with a bit more spit and polish. It needs some refinement and nuance to truly be great.