Beautiful Country

6.5/10

This book was well written and did a good job showing how illegal immigrants have a rough time, and immigrants in general. It was great to see America through the eyes of a young child who had no concept of western culture when she arrived. Like most memoirs in this vein, the book is a lesson in empathy: try to put yourself in someone else's shoes, especially when they are very different from you. It's a skill we can all work on, and I find memoirs like this great as a reminder to not slack on extending grace and kindness to people, as well as to see the world through the eyes of someone with vastly different life experiences. As someone who also grew up very poor, some of the poverty sections felt very relatable to me, even if Wang was even poorer than I was.

The reason it's not a higher rating from me is that it's a pretty short book, that ends when she is still very young and quite abruptly. I don't think the story was over yet, but evidently the author disagrees. Also, some of the stuff she chose to focus on was just not captivating. Too Large of portions of this book are taken up with her trying to train a cat, going shopping, or some other mundane activity. Hell, there are 4-5 “I went to the bathroom” stories in here. I just think it could have been told a bit tighter, or expanded the length of time it covered. If I was to write a book strictly about my childhood, there would also be huge gaps and I may be inspired to fill space with random things I remembered; but it wouldn't be better for it.

I still think this is worth reading, though. I'm glad I read it and I would recommend it to others.