#unpresidentedreads Challenge 2017 discussion

I chose to read a fictional work as fiction is said to help foster empathy, and after seeing this on a list recommended by other authors, I chose this one. Unfortunately, I abandoned it about 150 pages in for reasons I will explain shortly.

The initial narrator is a recent widow, and retired scientist and teacher. She came to America on her own as a teenager, sent to live with an American family and, I think, teach them Chinese. (the book was rather unclear on how she came to be in America and what her relationship was with her host family) She is the daughter of a Chinese man and an American woman living in China, initially as a missionary. I think her family stayed behind while she went to America. Through her, the author explored concepts of the uneasy relationship between religion and science. The narrator has a negative view of the ancestor worship of her relatives, not sympathetic to their reasons for wanting the graves of her parents moved back to China. I found the descriptions of her discomfort with her religious heritage to be particularly interesting.

The initial narrator's speech is often peppered with Chinese phrases, some translated and some not. I liked that some were not translated as it left the reader in a slightly confused state, as I'm sure many non-native English speakers are on hearing our idioms. As the initial narrator's story unfolds, a Cambodian family moves in down the hill from her, and she befriends them. The adults in the family speak little to no English, while the children speak English full of "like" and other slang-type words. The initial narrator befriends the teenager daughter in particular, chatting with her about the Cambodia she recently left and her family structure.

Once the book switched to having the Cambodian teenager as narrator, I gave up on continuing. The text was written in a stream of consciousness teenage-language style, peppered with filler words and in particular with "like" thrown in at regular intervals. The book became incredibly difficult to read. I really admired the author's ability to write so convincingly as a teenager, and to use language as a way to draw lines and similarities between different generations of immigrants. But, my reading pace slowed, trying to get through the colloquial style and the due date for the book arrived. Future chapters of the book have the initial narrator return, and alternate chapters with a recently divorced man, lifelong resident of the town.

Overall, the book made some interesting explorations of language and the uneasy relationship between religion, tradition, and science. I'm not sure, though, that I'd recommend it. There wasn't much of a story, and the writing style was kind of a slog.