Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang

Every so often I finish a book and immediately want to hand it to someone else.  I did! It’s our next book club book!  How much of your identity is cultural and how much is personal? Lily is excited to attend an immersion program in Taipei to really get to grips with her Chinese heritage.  She has been speaking Chinese since she was a child, but that’s not the same as writing and understanding.  There is also the culture shock.  She is an American student in Taipei.  She was to see everything and do everything, but she is an outsider and still living far from home and family and this makes her question a lot in her young life.  R.F. Kuang is becoming one of my favorite authors that can turn her hand at many genres.  Taipei Story is about learning about yourself more than anything.

If Lily’s questions about culture, belonging, and figuring out who you are stay with you, read Last Night at the Telegraph Club next. Lily Hu is growing up in a very different place and time, but she is also trying to understand which parts of herself come from family and community and which belong entirely to her. Read the review →

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