At first glance, the quirky, overworked narrator of this novel seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life: she is studying for a prestigious PhD in chemistry that will make her Chinese parents proud (or at least satisfied), and her successful, supportive boyfriend has just proposed to her. But instead of feeling hopeful, she is wracked with ambivalence. The long demanding hours at the lab have created an exquisite pressure cooker, and she doesn't know how to answer the marriage question. When it all becomes too much and her life plan veers off course, she finds herself on a new path of discoveries about everything she thought she knew.
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So first off, found out about this book from my sister who was like..."I think we met the author at one of the Chinese soup kitchens we volunteered at as kids." This novel is well written--direct yet poetic, fast, with lots of vignettes. The experiences she talks about with her parents (they are Chinese immigrants like mine) are absurdly relatable. She does a really good job of illustrating her complex relationship with them, and giving them a lot of emotional depth and respect. This is also the first time I've read a novel with a Chinese American heroine, experiencing things such as anxiety, despair, failure, problems with boys, etc. I was really rooting for her. It reminded me of my friends and me. Which is why I want all my Chinese friends from Canton to read this book.
Oh yeah, the book is about a woman who is doing her Chemistry Phd, who then has a slight emotional breakdown, and drops out. She's got a white bf who keeps asking her to marry him, parents who refuse to accept any amount of failure in her Phd, and a dog and a shrink.
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