Book Review: "Rabbit Moon" by Jennifer Haigh

This was such a powerful and emotional book, one I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

Claire and Aaron’s 22-year-old daughter Lindsey is teaching English in China. When they get a call telling them that Lindsey was hit by a car in Shanghai, they’re both devastated and confused, because as far as they knew, she was working in Beijing.

Lindsey is comatose and her parents come to Shanghai to sit with her and pray that she wakes up. Both Claire and Aaron, who got divorced a few years earlier, want to understand what happened to their daughter. The hit-and-run happened in the early hours of the morning and there were no witnesses.

The book follows the couple in the days following the accident and also traces both the end of their marriage and the erosion of their relationships with Lindsey. We also see Lindsey’s life in China and the secrets she kept from her family, as well as the perspectives of her best friend Johnny and her younger sister Grace, adopted from China as an infant.

This is a book about family, the bond between sisters, and the desire to be loved. It’s also a book about cultural identity, found family, and the things we wished we had said before it was too late.

I’ve read a number of Jennifer Haigh’s books and I’m always dazzled by her talent. I loved the way the disparate elements of this story came together, and I loved how much Haigh’s storytelling drew me in.

Book Review: "The Emperor and the Endless Palace" by Justinian Huang

“What if I told you that the feeling we call love is actually the feeling of metaphysical recognition, when your soul remembers someone from a previous life?”

Justinian Huang’s debut novel was my pick for our book club this month. A romantasy—which isn’t a genre I’ve read much of—that dealt with the idea of soulmates through time, it definitely provoked some interesting conversation.

The book alternates among three different narratives.

Dong Xian is a court clerk in the Endless Palace in the year 4 BCE. He wants to make something of himself, so when he is offered the chance to befriend and seduce the young emperor, he agrees. He does not count on the intrigue that surrounds him, or the one who wants to stop him.

In 1740, He Shican is an innkeeper who welcomes a handsome guest and his grandmother, who is very ill. Summoning his friend and former lover, a doctor, to help the guests, He doesn’t know what forces he is awakening.

In current-day Los Angeles, River, recently out of the closet, goes to a circuit party with a friend of his. There he meets Joey, a handsome man, whom he is immediately drawn to. Yet both have a feeling they know each other from somewhere, and River’s determination to find Joey again brings him up against a corrupt businessman.

This is a beautifully written book, although the few sex scenes were very odd for me, distracting me from the rest of the story. The ending was a bit abrupt and I don’t know if I made every connection between the three stories, but I was drawn in to the story.

Book Review: "Cinema Love" by Jiaming Tang

“Theirs is the kind of love that can change the weather. A radio forecast predicting rain switches its tune the moment Old Second sees Shun-Er. Clouds part, a breeze picks up, and the sun becomes so yellow it looks delicious. Just peel the skin, remove the seeds, and bite. Not hard but soft, the way Shun-Er touches Old Second.”

Within just a few sentences, I knew that Cinema Love was a beautifully written book. Jiaming Tang’s word choices convey so much, creating a layered story full of emotion, pain, and hope.

To see Bao Mei and her husband, Old Second, walking through New York’s Chinatown, you’d assume they were a typical Chinese couple. But the two contain multitudes—before they came to America, they both frequented the Worker’s Cinema in Fuzhou. Bao Mei worked as the ticket seller, while Old Second, like many of the cinema’s patrons, was looking for illicit encounters with other men, as old movies played.

Bao Mei works at the cinema knowing who its patrons are, and she appoints herself as a protector of these men, chasing nagging wives and others away who might be looking for their husbands or sons. She herself has a relationship of sorts with the projectionist, who is the cinema owner’s son. But they all know this idyll cannot last, and when a series of events occurs that exposes the truth, it leads to tragedy, as well as some fleeing to America.

This is the story of Bao Mei and Old Second, as well as others who have come to America, and while the ways that these characters are interconnected might not be obvious at first, it all falls together nicely. The book shifts narration as well as timeframes, between the past in China and the present in New York.

While I felt that the pacing of the book was a bit slow and there are places where you are left to formulate your own answers, this is a moving story about how, even years later, we are indelibly affected by parts of our life.

Book Review: "Joan Is Okay" by Weike Wang

The second book from Weike Wang, Joan Is Okay is a quirky, thought-provoking look at work, family, our connections with others, and how we handle their expectations.

“Who really wanted to be different? I wondered. And to be treated differently for things about them that couldn’t be changed. Most people who were different just wanted to be the same.”

Joan is an ICU attending physician at a New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she was instilled with a strong work ethic, and she is willing to work constantly. Even though it can be difficult and stressful, Joan is lost without her work. She’s not one to seek out social connections with colleagues, peers, or potential love interests, but she doesn’t feel lonely or unfulfilled, even though others seem to think she should.

When Joan and her older brother were settled in their lives, their parents returned to China. Their father dies suddenly and Joan returns briefly to China for the first time in a long while. Her time there, coupled with her mother’s subsequent trip to America to stay with Joan’s brother, causes Joan to further increase her workload and reevaluate her relationships, with family, colleagues, and others. The only place she feels in complete control is when she is in charge of the ICU.

Joan’s mother’s return to America sets off family tensions, while at the same the world is on the cusp of dealing with the COVID pandemic. What does this all mean for Joan and her ambitions, as well as her family?

This novel is written in a very spare style, much like Joan herself, but there are many moments of wry humor. It’s one of those books that it feels like there's not much drama happening but at the same time so much character development occurs.

Joan Is Okay might not be a book for everyone but I found it really interesting and it definitely made me think.