What do you think?
Rate this book
A Great Place to Raise a Family
Not yet published
Expected 16 Feb 27****
When Chancey and Tommy Luu came to Australia, they believed they were building something secure for their a life safer and steadier than the one they'd left behind. But in 2005, as riots erupt across Sydney, that security has started to crack – especially when ten-year-old Fiona comes home to find the house ransacked. Only one thing is a ceramic treasure chest she made at school.
As Fiona searches for answers, the burglary exposes the fault lines running through her family. Tommy clings to respectability with desperate force. Chancey is cornered by her own lies. Older sister Helen will do anything to be seen. And Ah Sim, the sharp-tongued matriarch who helped raise them all, knows what fear can do to a family. What emerges is a portrait of a household – and a nation – built on hope, denial, and the longing to belong.
Piercing and compassionate, A Great Place to Raise a Family is a novel about migration and assimilation, the fragile architecture of family, and the distance between the life we imagine and the one we actually make.
****
Praise for Tracey
‘Utterly compelling from start to finish. Original. Heartbreaking. Gripping’ Liane Moriarty
‘An urgent story that commands an audience … as heart-wrenching as it is unputdownable’ Karin Slaughter
‘Deeply moving and truly special … a story that is both impossible to put down and impossible to forget’ Chris Whitaker
When Chancey and Tommy Luu came to Australia, they believed they were building something secure for their a life safer and steadier than the one they'd left behind. But in 2005, as riots erupt across Sydney, that security has started to crack – especially when ten-year-old Fiona comes home to find the house ransacked. Only one thing is a ceramic treasure chest she made at school.
As Fiona searches for answers, the burglary exposes the fault lines running through her family. Tommy clings to respectability with desperate force. Chancey is cornered by her own lies. Older sister Helen will do anything to be seen. And Ah Sim, the sharp-tongued matriarch who helped raise them all, knows what fear can do to a family. What emerges is a portrait of a household – and a nation – built on hope, denial, and the longing to belong.
Piercing and compassionate, A Great Place to Raise a Family is a novel about migration and assimilation, the fragile architecture of family, and the distance between the life we imagine and the one we actually make.
****
Praise for Tracey
‘Utterly compelling from start to finish. Original. Heartbreaking. Gripping’ Liane Moriarty
‘An urgent story that commands an audience … as heart-wrenching as it is unputdownable’ Karin Slaughter
‘Deeply moving and truly special … a story that is both impossible to put down and impossible to forget’ Chris Whitaker
288 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication February 16, 2027
About the author
Tracey Lien
7 books262 followersTracey Lien was born and raised in southwestern Sydney, Australia. She earned her MFA at the University of Kansas and was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. All That's Left Unsaid is her first novel.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
When Chancey and Tommy Luu's home is burgled, the only thing that appears to be missing is the ceramic chest that their younger daughter Fiona made as an art project. While 10 year old Fiona and her young friends puzzle over why anyone would take that ("it's a one of a kind piece of art that could be valuable"), her older sister Helen and each of her parents is convinced that they know why this has happened. Because the members of this family are all keeping secrets from each other...
Set against the race riots in Sydney in 2005, this is a clever, touching, and compelling piece of storytelling about identity, immigration, the compromises we make to fit in, and the price we pay for each of those decisions. The characters are well drawn, and their circumstances are unusual - particularly in the case of the matriarch, Ah Sim.
Above all, this is a remarkably well written, humorous, and very human story, one that will resonate with many readers. I loved it, and recommend it highly!
I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Set against the race riots in Sydney in 2005, this is a clever, touching, and compelling piece of storytelling about identity, immigration, the compromises we make to fit in, and the price we pay for each of those decisions. The characters are well drawn, and their circumstances are unusual - particularly in the case of the matriarch, Ah Sim.
Above all, this is a remarkably well written, humorous, and very human story, one that will resonate with many readers. I loved it, and recommend it highly!
I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
My thanks to William Morrow for an advance review copy of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway.
Much ado about nothing. That was my initial reaction to the book. It took me a long time to care about this somewhat petty crime, where someone broke a window and entered the Luu family home, stealing only one item, a ceramic treasure chest their youngest daughter Fiona had made in school.
With the exception of one chapter, this book was written in third person, alternating the different characters' points of view. This choice enabled the author to tell the story using dialog, a particular skill of hers, whether the conversations were in Teochew, Vietnamese, (conveyed to the reader in English) or imperfect English amongst the adults, or the spot-on conversations of the children with their neighbors and classmates, agilely navigating the slang of their age and their peers. Lien did a wonderful job portraying children in their own naivety and vernacular.
The story begins in December 2005, with the backdrop of an actual event, where racially-motivated riots broke out in the seaside town of North Cronulla Beach. Though the riots, where whites targeted young Middle Eastern men, the outbreak of white supremacy with the promise of more violence, made the Luu family and their ethnically diverse neighbors uneasy about how this might affect their status as immigrants in Australia.
The Luu parents, Tommy & Chancey, immigrants from Vietnam to a fictional Sydney, Australia suburb, try mightily to assimilate into Australian society and to give their daughters a promising future. They quickly adopt anglicized names for themselves and give their daughters English names when they are born. We learn that they are ethnically Teowchew, a Chinese sub-ethnic group that through diaspora live throughout Southeast Asia. They speak Teochew, Vietnamese, and English. When their elder daughter Helen was born, they resolve only to speak to her in English, so she knows little of their native languages. Their younger daughter Fiona did pick up Teochew, probably because a member of their found family in Australia, Ah Sim, shared childcare duties, and she speaks only Teochew.
Each member of the Luu family reflects on the break-in and the theft and creates their own theories as to who might have broken in and why. It turns out that the parents and Helen have each hidden items in Fiona's treasure chest, which had become the family's virtual junk drawer. For reasons that become clear, the police never show up to investigate the crime.
Though I found myself becoming impatient with how gradually the story unspools, I found the ending to be solid and satisfying. That's a rare phenomenon in my reading. My frequent complaint with other books is a weak or rushed conclusion, so kudos to Ms. Lien! I look forward to reading more of her work!
Much ado about nothing. That was my initial reaction to the book. It took me a long time to care about this somewhat petty crime, where someone broke a window and entered the Luu family home, stealing only one item, a ceramic treasure chest their youngest daughter Fiona had made in school.
With the exception of one chapter, this book was written in third person, alternating the different characters' points of view. This choice enabled the author to tell the story using dialog, a particular skill of hers, whether the conversations were in Teochew, Vietnamese, (conveyed to the reader in English) or imperfect English amongst the adults, or the spot-on conversations of the children with their neighbors and classmates, agilely navigating the slang of their age and their peers. Lien did a wonderful job portraying children in their own naivety and vernacular.
The story begins in December 2005, with the backdrop of an actual event, where racially-motivated riots broke out in the seaside town of North Cronulla Beach. Though the riots, where whites targeted young Middle Eastern men, the outbreak of white supremacy with the promise of more violence, made the Luu family and their ethnically diverse neighbors uneasy about how this might affect their status as immigrants in Australia.
The Luu parents, Tommy & Chancey, immigrants from Vietnam to a fictional Sydney, Australia suburb, try mightily to assimilate into Australian society and to give their daughters a promising future. They quickly adopt anglicized names for themselves and give their daughters English names when they are born. We learn that they are ethnically Teowchew, a Chinese sub-ethnic group that through diaspora live throughout Southeast Asia. They speak Teochew, Vietnamese, and English. When their elder daughter Helen was born, they resolve only to speak to her in English, so she knows little of their native languages. Their younger daughter Fiona did pick up Teochew, probably because a member of their found family in Australia, Ah Sim, shared childcare duties, and she speaks only Teochew.
Each member of the Luu family reflects on the break-in and the theft and creates their own theories as to who might have broken in and why. It turns out that the parents and Helen have each hidden items in Fiona's treasure chest, which had become the family's virtual junk drawer. For reasons that become clear, the police never show up to investigate the crime.
Though I found myself becoming impatient with how gradually the story unspools, I found the ending to be solid and satisfying. That's a rare phenomenon in my reading. My frequent complaint with other books is a weak or rushed conclusion, so kudos to Ms. Lien! I look forward to reading more of her work!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The writing feels chaotic at times but it is worth the effort to stick with it. It reflects the lives of the main protagonists who are refugees from SE Asia into Sydney. In their various ways they find it difficult to shed their upbringing and also how difficult it is to assimilate into the Australian society. The gulf in understanding between the adults and their Australian raised children is well developed.
The Sydney riots of 2005 provide the catalyst that causes all the members of the family to look at how they fit together and into the society around them.
I received a free copy of this novel from NetGalley in return for an honest review.
The Sydney riots of 2005 provide the catalyst that causes all the members of the family to look at how they fit together and into the society around them.
I received a free copy of this novel from NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
Wow, this book is beautifully written! I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the characters - their depth continued to evolve until the very last page.
October 13, 2026
Thank you to @WilliamMorrow for an early copy of this book.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. At times the flow of the chapters felt a little off or disjointed. The book is based on an incident from 2005 in Sydney, Australia. Around 5,000 people rioted against people that “looked” like they were from the Middle East. It is a slower read but worth staying with it.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. At times the flow of the chapters felt a little off or disjointed. The book is based on an incident from 2005 in Sydney, Australia. Around 5,000 people rioted against people that “looked” like they were from the Middle East. It is a slower read but worth staying with it.
October 7, 2026
This was such a good book on how apologies and doing the right thing will get you farther in life than lying and not telling the truth.
I loved the different POVs of each family member and wasn’t expecting the end.
So happy I won this in the Goodreads giveaway 💕
I loved the different POVs of each family member and wasn’t expecting the end.
So happy I won this in the Goodreads giveaway 💕
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews