Joan Is Okay

I love Joan, I see and respect and appreciate her so much. This book read a little differently than I think it's billed, but I still loved it because I really enjoy Weike Wang's characters and style of writing.

This book is said to be about looking at people like doctors in everyday life, especially those with their own troubled and wound up pasts and families, and especially those who went through traumatic experiences such as the covid-19 pandemic. And it's certainly about that. But it's about so much more. So much of this book is spent about the treatment of oneself in the company of a harsh, overbearing family. The compartmentalization of one's entire person as chipped away at by their family and those close to them for years and years--the inability to even get close to anybody simply because they are so worn down and boxed up over time. And yet, despite that, Joan truly is okay. But what I loved about this book is that you can see and you very much want her to be more than okay but to be better, to be thriving, to be living.

I love Joan. I see and respect and appreciate her so much. This book read a little differently than I think it was billed (I thought it was going to be much more of an intimate look at doctors and their struggles with being unsung and necessary heroes throughout events like the COVID-19 pandemic), but I still loved it because I really enjoy Weike Wang's characters and style of writing.

"An immigrant family controls nothing and so raises two average children obsessed with gaining it back, albeit in different ways." This line is from about halfway through the book, and it really stuck with me. It so simply describes what this book is about. Joan, like Weike, being an Asian American, has her own struggles that are shared by countless of this identity. Through explorations into Joan's family we see the ways Joan deals with these struggles, as well as her brother, who responds as an almost polar opposite way. We see the ways they conflict with one another and their family and the almost insidious way it strains all of their relationships.

This book is about so much more than simply the tough life of a doctor. So much of this book is spent about the treatment of oneself in the company of a harsh, overbearing family. We see the compartmentalization of one's entire person as chipped away at by their family and those close to them for years and years--the inability to even get close to anybody simply because they are so worn down and boxed up over time. And yet, despite that, Joan truly is okay. What I loved about this book, tragic though it may be, is that you can see Joan's inner monologue and she is indeed okay. But you very much want her to be more than okay but to be better, to be thriving, to be living.