100 Books Like The Wangs Vs. The World

Why people lie is often as interesting as the lie itself for me. This book lays this out as Korede finds herself being a protective big sister to the beautiful Ayoola, a woman with an unfortunate hobby of bumping off men she dates. Despite the darkness of the subject matter, it’s a story full of humor as Korede finds herself telling lie after lie and getting in way over her head to cover up her sister’s murders.

I’ve got two sisters (none of us serial killers!), and it’s funny how much of this tale is relatable! It’s fresh and sharp, with a rich vein of humor that had me chuckling through much of it.

Just a great novel – you will fall in love and empathize with the characters.

As always, Irving mixes in life and death making the fiction feel real. Irving has a way of surprising the reader. Each plot turn will bring out a new emotion. The reader will feel sorrow, anger, and love while identifying with the characters.

Most importantly, Irving has a real touch with making me laugh at the twists and turns of life.

I laughed a lot reading Eligible. Yes, it’s silly, but this version of Pride and Prejudice had me hooked from the outset, probably for no other reason than that it forced me to consider the Bennet family and the sisters, in a new, twenty-first century light.

Liz, late 30’s, magazine writer, and her older sister, Jane, a yoga instructor, live in New York, whilst youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia, are busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to consider careers. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master's degree. And, yes, Mrs Bennet just wants to marry off her daughters.

I loved the five sisters’ dynamics: at times sweet, bitchy, caring, dismissive, rude, and compulsively dishing out home truths. I also appreciated the women were trying to break away from family expectations and controls. After reading this, I was very glad I only have one sister… show more.

Just wow. The siblings in this book are super-angry with their brother, whose addictions and reckless behavior racked up huge bills, eating through the joint inheritance they were all counting on to deal with their own bad (but perhaps less shameful) behaviors.

I loved the complexity of this book. The bad brother—and let’s be clear that he was definitely a piece of work—was such a scapegoat for everyone else’s issues. I loved learning about the characters’ hidden flaws, watching the hypocrisy unfold, and seeing them all work through their anger and their differing versions of their childhood.

It’s another reminder that people can grow up in the same house with the same parents and take vastly different routes in life. 

The railroad worker and the interpreter; The Hong Kong beauty/midwife and the fishmonger’s daughter; the Kung fu master’s family turned tong bosses and the civic leaders and charity organizers; the merchants and the opium dealers; the church ladies and the rice wine hooch brewers; the lofan (white) Aunt Elva with a painful secret….

These are some of the unforgettable characters from Chin’s sprawling family. I loved this glimpse into the Chinese American experience in New York City during the same time my family was muddling through in Georgia. I also have reason to believe my grandfather knew some of these characters personally through his correspondence and Chinese liberation work. Chin did honor to all of the ancestors with this skillful weaving of history, memory, anecdote, and a daughter/granddaughter’s loving intuition.

This is a fantastic book about the hardships many immigrants face, from being taken advantage of by their employers, to language barriers, and of course, racism. What I loved about this book is its portrayal of community. Growing up poor, I know that it’s often those with nothing who give the most. Kids will cheer for Mia as she works the front desk, helps those around her, and stands up to injustice.

This memoir informed me of the psychological price of immigration and displacement on young children in ways that were searing and deep because of Wang’s mastery of the child’s perspective.

She lived in New York’s Chinatown with her parents two professionals who immigrated from China and experienced poverty, isolation, fear of deportation, working in a sweatshop. She was saved by her love of books and reading, and her mother’s determination to realize the life she left China to have. Wang creates innocence and trauma with a deft, poetic skill that makes this a classic. 

I love all of Grace Lin’s books – we share the same surname after all! Bringing in the New Year is another great one of hers. This board book is meant for the very young (0-3 years), but older kids will learn from it too. It describes how a Chinese family prepares for the Chinese New Year - decorating the house, making dumplings, and wearing new clothes. Celebrations follow with fireworks and lion dancers to scare away the previous year’s bad luck. The fun color illustrations will be a hit with the little ones, especially the fold-out dragon at the end of the book.

When talking with younger writers, sooner or later I ask them to name a writer or a book they can point to and say, “That’s the goal. That’s what I care about. That’s what I want to do.” If I asked myself this question, one of my answers would be Karen Joy Fowler’s first novel, a pitch-perfect account of 19th-century America and the mysterious title character, a weird woman whose weirdness confirms how weird everything else already is.

I loved reading this recently released wonderful book. It’s not a parenting book–and Jon would be surprised that I list it with my favorite parenting books—but it’s a fabulous book about his life and how the child of immigrants who ran a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto became one of the top movie directors in the US with Crazy Rich Asians and the upcoming Wicked.

But I’m including it in this list because he talks about his incredible parents and how they protected, supported, and believed in him. He also describes how he is now using what he learned to raise his four children. My book includes a very brief version of his story, but I loved learning the rest of it.