The Balance Tips

by Ren Iris

Fay Wu Goodson is a 25-year-old queer, multiracial woman who documents the identity journeys of other New Yorkers. She finds her videography work meaningful, but more importantly, it distracts her from investigating the challenges of her own life and keeps relationships at a distance. When the family's Taiwanese patriarch dies, Fay's Asian grandmother moves to America; and Fay, her mother, and her aunt learn unsettling truths about their family and each other. They must decide to finally confront themselves, or let their pasts destroy everything each woman has dreamed of and worked for. An unconventional story of an Asian-American matriarchy, THE BALANCE TIPS is a literary exploration of Taiwanese-American female roles in family, sexual identity, racism, and the internal struggles fostered by Confucian patriarchy that would appeal to fans of Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You.

Genres: Queer, Fiction, LGBT

282 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 2021

About the author

Ren Iris* (née Stoffers) was raised in New Jersey by a Taiwanese mother and a white father. They hold a BA in English from Rutgers University and an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University. Iris is the author of Whasian (Harken Media, 2015). Their latest novel, The Balance Tips, is available now from Interlude Press: https://bit.ly/3Bfe6nP.

[*You may have seen my latest book, The Balance Tips, under different names. Those have since been changed to Ren Iris.]

Reviews

[Hsinju Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Balance Tips is a queer multiracial Taiwanese-American (and Taiwanese) book with about a hundred chapters written in all sorts of format, including letters, scripts, narratives. Each character has a name that carries a meaning: Jia (home), Hua (flower), Faith, etc. The story is about grappling with identities, breaking free of cultural/generational pressure, and unveiling family lies.

The story is about a family, with three main characters in various combinations of first-, second-, and third-person POVs:
– Jia Wu, a Taiwanese woman who visited the US and ended up staying there after giving birth to Faith;
– Hua Wu Ting, Jia’s younger sister, a professor in NY married to an Asian-American professor Phil;
– Faith “Fay” Wu Goodson, the multiracial American daughter of Jia’s.
There is also a deceased background character, Jia & Hua’ father and Fay’s grandfather, who was a KMT general, playing the role of an oppressor during the 228 Incident and White Terror (these are real Taiwanese historical events after the Chinese Civil War). I love a good story with historical references. Huang-Iris did a great job of stringing everything together, weaving them all into a family story. That being said, I also think the author tried to do too much, and even though all the themes, imageries, metaphors, and analogies make sense, as a reader, I felt like I was being pulled in one too many directions.

I love the writing flows like thoughts, of making connections between similar-sounding English words, breaking down of phrases, the play on words, and switching between English and Mandarin and sometimes Taiwanese. If you wonder whether some of the creepy stories, interesting idioms, fascinating superstitions are real things that Taiwanese people know about, I, here speaking for one Taiwanese person (me), can say that yes, I have heard about all the stories/rhymes/idioms/beliefs/etc. mentioned in the story growing up.

See the cover featuring a diabolo/Chinese yo-yo? The Balance Tips is a diasporic story on top of a coming out one of sorts. Maybe walking between intersecting identities (cultural, sexuality, racial, etc.) requires balance. The book did open with the 1989 San Francisco Earthquake, a quake that came from the Earth, the soil (important themes in the story), that disrupted everything. Though there are about a hundred chapters in the story, which might be an attempt of visualizing fracturing, each piece fits into the bigger picture in the end. The Balance Tips is undoubtedly a work of well thought out of fiction.

There were two somewhat questionable statements from Fay in the story that I hope are only present in the ARC: suggesting that “pansexual” is more inclusive of gender non-conforming and trans people than “bisexual” (nope, they’re both just as inclusive) and using the term “differently abled,” which is ableist.

This is the second queer Taiwanese-American book I have ever read (the other one being K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary, which I also reviewed), and it is always eye-opening to read queer Taiwanese diasporic works. The Balance Tips is a densely-packed novel filled with metaphorical scenes that take a bit of thought to understand. With its heavier theme, it is not an easy read but the ending is certainly lighter and hopeful.

This book comes with its own content warnings in the author’s notes.

I received a digital review copy from Interlude Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Buddy read with Gabriella! Check out her review here!

[Gabriella · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Balance Tips was interesting to read. It doesn’t subscribe to any rules, switching between first, third, and even second person. Some chapters are in the traditional novel format, while others are told through scripts, interviews, and letters. It’s often hard to deduce whether a chapter is a reflection of real events, is only a script, is a figment of someone’s imagination, or is just one giant metaphor. This book is a tough one for me to rate, mostly because a lot of the metaphoric content flew right over my head.

I really liked the exploration of family in this story and how Jia’s, Hua’s, and Fay’s lives converge after Grandma Wu comes to live in the US. While the eclectic style of the book made it difficult to follow the character arcs in a linear fashion, I still felt like I got to know the characters well — especially their fears, desires, and histories. I didn’t always like the process of reading this book, but due to a desire to know what happened, it was easy to keep reading.

Unfortunately there’s some problematic language in this book. The phrase “differently-abled” is used once, and pansexuality is equated with attraction to trans and gender nonconforming people.

Overall, I’m glad I read this book, even though it’s not really my style. If you’re a fan of books like Bestiary and Red at the Bone, you’ll probably also enjoy this one!

Buddy read with Hsinju! Check out their in-depth review here.

Content warnings are provided in the author’s note at the beginning of the book.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Alex Doenau]

Writing anything about this seems like punching down, so I'll just log it.

[Kai · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I wasn't sure how I felt about the formatting of the story, but I think it's a rather unique and effective way to tell this story. I loved reading this book.

[BookBagDC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of three generations of women and their experiences navigating issues of identity, race, sexuality, and family. Fay Wu Goodson is a queer, multiracial videographer in her 20s, living in New York whose work focuses on these issues for others without exploring them in her town life. A series of events prompts Fay; her mother and aunt, who raised Fay and have had very different experiences during their several decades living in in the U.S.; and her grandmother, who moves to the U.S. after living in Taiwan most of her life to more deeply explore their relationship to each other, the role of women leading families, their overlapping and conflicting identities, and their internal struggles to live as their most authentic lives.

Recommended!

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some interesting qualities to this book, but ultimately it was just really difficult to get through with the changing voices, formats, and what have you. Not to say I haven’t read books that have done similar maneuvers before, but the way this one unfolded just didn’t seem to flow as well to me.