Foreigners is my latest obsession. I adored the latest release from Shen. After Queens of New York, I knew to expect great things, but this takes the cake! Keep reading this book review of Foreigners for my full thoughts.
Summary
For centuries, the Chin family has kept its secrets.
In 1878, Duanfang knows he’s destined for greatness. He’ll do anything to uphold and protect the legacy of his Manchu family—even if it means hiding his past.
In 1966, Zheng Yi flies from Taiwan to New York City to have a shot at attending an American college. Thrown into a world of parties, prejudice, and a tumultuous romance, Yi worries that New York may be more than she can handle. But just as she is beginning to adjust, she must make a shocking decision that will irrevocably change her life and her future forever.
Today, Dawn Chin’s family is opaque at best, with heavy expectations and heavier silences. But an assignment to interview her grandmother is about to crack open her real family a legacy hundreds of years old, and a lie decades in the making…
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Give me all the multi-generational stories. Foreigners is an emotional story about family secrets and identity. About how an opportunity for change, a new start, can sour or blossom. It’s a story wrapped up in mystery and the things we never ask about. Family secrets and pieces of someone we wish we knew even as they try to hide. Foreigners is a beautiful book about the layers of privilege and opportunity. If we should shed our old name, our identity, and assimilate? If part of our becoming is to be uncomplicated and not make waves. And do we pave our success by stepping on others? Foreigners has a strong sense of mystery which pulls us through the pages.
How long do we hide our past before it becomes who we are, what our legacy is? Foreigners asks what it means to be American, Asian American, and how we imitate American-ness. It asks us if we know the present and look towards the future, can we move forwards if we never know our past? If questions always linger. What is the cost of a lie? A life? Foreigners is a beautiful and moving story about family and love all swirled up in a multi-generational mystery. Find Foreigners on Goodreads, Storygraph, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.