Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book!

I enjoyed this one and I highly recommend. I binged read this in one day!

I didn't know what to expect from this book and I was so happy I enjoyed it as much as I did. Themes of racism, classism, and identity are explored in this excellent debut. I really appreciated the different perspectives shared in this story. I love a coming of age story and family drama. I thought this author did an excellent job of highlighting the immigrant experience.

Going into this story I didn’t really know what to expect. I’d seem some buzz around the title but hadn’t even really read the description before going into it. Each charter had such a unique voice through out the story and I couldn’t get enough of each of them. I’m so glad I had relatively no prior knowledge of the plot going into it because it made every part of it that much more interesting.

This was a beautiful story about immigrants and their struggles. I think the author did a wonderful job for a debut novel.

It’s about this family trying to fit into a system that seems to be working against them.

This book was so interestingly written. It's like a circle of life novel in a way, but also, very much an immigrant story. It's also a clear picture of what the American Dream actually looks likes in pursuit of it from the immigrant perspective.

This book touched on so many different issues such as race, class, immigration and identity. The story follows a Chinese-American family trying to make their way in New York. Tony, who is convinced that he would hit the ceiling in China if he stayed, moved his family to the US. Everything he does, including his jobs starting at the bottom, is to create a better life for his daughter, Tammy. I loved the multiple POVs including Tony, Tammy and Oliver who is a white lawyer. This was a character driven novel that explored the complex relationships between family and the people you meet. A story about the American Dream and how one creates their own identity.

Paper Names follows a Chinese immigrant family from the 1980s to 2000s. Tammy is the daughter to Tony and Kim, names they’ve taken on after coming to America. We meet Oliver as well; a handsome and very rich man with family secrets. We rotate perspectives between Oliver, Tammy and Tony in New York and China.

I was immediately sucked into this book and while the narrator had a somer naive tone (reminiscent of Chinese Groove) the book still felt self assured and grown up. This book brings together so many themes I love:
Coming of age
Family drama
Immigrant experience

Plus a bit of romance and even mystery:

I am truly blown away that this is a debut and thrilled that Book of the Month picked it in May - I’m so hopeful this reaches a broad audience.

Recommend this highly for its highs and lows, its truths about the complexity of relationships, family, and how we fight, beg, steal and borrow for our families/loved ones. Really beautiful and powerful.

4.5 stars (rounding up here)

I do like the narrator for this one a lot. His voice is calming and soft, both things I always want in an audiobook narrator. However, that was not enough to pull me in. I like a start to a book that gets me automatically invested, and this was not it for me. My attention kept getting pulled away from this while I was listening.

Thank you to @harpercollins @hanoversquare press for this ALC in exchange for a review.

I’m just going to bury the lead and say Luo’s debut is fantastic. This is a character driven, multi-viewpoint, non-linear timeline story that follows Tony, a Chinese immigrant, his daughter, Tammy, and a white, wealthy lawyer named Oliver. Following these characters, Luo tackles family relationships, generational trauma, identity and asks what it means to be “American.”

Luo brilliantly captures the complexity of father/daughter relationships and made me as a reader feel the pain in the struggle and obstacle each character faced. Tony’s struggle to “make it” in America, to assimilate, to be “more American” and all that he had to give up of his culture and past to get there. Tammy’s struggle to understand her father, to meet his expectations and find her place in a country that wants to “other” her and her family.

I can’t believe I’ve gotten this far without acknowledging Austin Ku, the narrator of the book. He brought me into this so quickly with how he portrayed each of the characters. He made me feel every emotion these characters felt throughout.

The only thing that kept this from being a full five stars is I did not love the direction that Oliver and Tammy’s relationship took.

I look forward to reading future books by Luo.


TW: racism, abuse, generational trauma, micro aggressions.

Paper Names was one of the best books I've read on the immigrant experience. I will be recommending this debut to everyone!

This amazing debut features Tony, his wife and his daughter, Tammy. They give up careers and good jobs and sacrifice everything to give Tammy a better life in America. However, it is not exactly how they imagined it. The culture curve is steep.

It follows Tammy from age 9 to an adult as a first generation Chinese American who just wants to be American. She is very much caught between the two cultures. Her parents push her to be more "white" but expect her to stay true to Chinese customs that she doesn't even remember.

Then there is Oliver who crosses their paths when Tony is his doorman at a posh apartment building and becomes like family to Tammy. Maybe even more.

I gave it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 stars rounded up to 5. I thought it was a beautiful story of love for your family and the sacrifices you make. So many times we don't understand until it's too late the sacrifices people have made for us. It gave me a perspective of the immigrant experience that I've never thought about until this book. It was so beautifully written from Tony, Tammy and Oliver's points of view. I felt so much for these characters. I will think about this one for a long time!!!

I was not crazy about the narrator of the audio book. I actually stopped after a couple of chapters and didn't pick it up for a couple of weeks. But once I was in, I was 100% in.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harperaudio of an advanced audio version of Paper Names in exchange of an honest review!

I loved the premise of this story and so much of the story overall. However, this was a tough read on audio since there is only one narrator and it is a male who was voicing for a young girl at times. It just was very awkward and didn't work for me and ultimately made me not connect with that character as well. I still enjoyed so much of this story and messaging though - thank you for my copy!

A powerful debut novel about race, class and a multigenerational Chinese American immigrant family figuring out how to 'live the dream' in Manhattan. At turns moving and shocking in its unexpected ending.

Great on audio narrated by Austin Ku and told from the alternating perspectives of the three main characters (Chinese born engineer, turned doorman Tony, his American born daughter, Tammy, and wealthy, white Oliver who grew up living in the same building as Tony and Tammy).

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early digital copies and Librofm for an ALC in exchange for my honest review!

Beautifully written debut novel! Luo explores so many different themes in this novel from family, immigrant experiences, privilege, etc. I loved the well-developed characters and the three perspectives the book was told from.

I loved the narration for this book! The narrator brought the book to life!

Paper Names by Susie Luo gets my vote for the most surprising novel I’ve read so far this year. This novel isn’t getting a lot of buzz here on Instagram, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when I requested it from the publisher. To be honest, it was mainly the cover that grabbed my attention, not necessarily the description. I wasn’t sure how the author was going to weave the perspectives of a white male lawyer, a Chinese man, and his daughter, but my gosh, Luo knocked my socks off! Color me impressed! Paper Names is definitely a character-driven novel, but it also has a steady plot that thickens fantastically. My jaw dropped a couple of times, and I also let out a few audible gasps along the way. I applaud Luo for exceeding my expectations with her extremely well written debut.

READ THIS IF YOU ENJOY:

- Immigration stories
- Coming-of-age novels
- Multiple perspectives
- Family dramas
- Father/daughter relationships
- New York City setting
- Chinese representation
- Twists, turns, and shocking events
- Chasing the American dream

If you love the thrill, excitement, and expectation of checking out a debut author’s work, then this book has your name on. Don’t pass it up. Trust me! Grab your copy of Paper Names on Tuesday, May 2nd! It gets a solid 4/5 stars from me!

Paper Names is the story of an immigrant family of three: Tony, Kim, and daughter Tammy who have emigrated to the US from China in search of opportunities for Tammy and the ability to have more material goods. The story is not a new one, and although it is told from different perspectives, including a close family friend, it lacks subtleties that would have added more depth to this novel. I found the leaps in time between some chapters disappointing, always feeling as if I had missed out on an important part of the story. Author Luo does a good job of portraying Tony and Tammy, but Kim - previously a medical doctor in China - is left to take on menial work without the reader/listener really learning about her own thoughts and frustrations with what has become her lot in life. The pivotal event in the book is not entirely believable; it relies on too many coincidences. Parallels drawn between different generations - Tony and Tammy, Oliver and his grandfather, Tony and his father, are interesting, although I think the last one could have been explored in more depth. In general I liked the narrator, although some of his attempts to voice females early in the narration were not successful.

A beautiful story about the immigrant experience and what it means to be an American. This is a very sad novel in a lot of ways, but also incredibly unique. The story is told from three unique perspectives - a Chinese-born engineer, working far beneath his education, his daughter who struggles with her father’s expectations and disappointments, and a lawyer who’s family is seeped in darkness and who winds up connected to this family following a violent act.

I struggled just a bit to get into this story, but once I connected with these different pivotal characters, and saw where this story was going, I was fully immersed. I loved the layout of the book and the dual timeline format, ending at the beginning. The characters had great depth and nuance to them and the author offers us a detailed look into their psyche throughout.

A very well done story, and a very important story, I highly recommend this one, especially on audio. Austin Ku does an incredible job narrating each of the characters in a way that makes them wholly unique and unforgettable.

Read if you like:
•coming of age
•family dramas
•the immigrant experience
•chinese-american representation
•multiple POV’s/timelines

Thank you {partner} Harper Audio for the gifted audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I was having a really hard time deciding what it was I liked about this book after finishing because there were two very big things that stuck out to me that I disliked. The two things (both of which are spoilers) being:
1. Tammy threatening to call the cops on her dad when he was lashing out after his father died. Let's be real, at least from my personal experience and my immediate social circle, no child of an immigrant has done this or threatened to call CPS beyond elementary school and if ever it was because their friends from non-immigrant families encouraged them to. It felt unbelievably juvenile and unrealistic that a grown woman who was a law school graduate would do this. I wish the author used this moment for Tammy to instead to address maybe it was her dad's fault that she never knew her grandfather considering Tammy was only just moments before grappling with her fiance calling her Chinese American and her not identifying with that description. It would have really set in her decision to go to China at the end of the book and delivered the (maybe some would argue) unfair verbal slap to the face she was trying to give her father.
2. Olivier's car being the one that hit Tammy's dad. It's maddeningly too easy. I've said before I love a good interwoven book where stuff is tied up nicely but this bow was too perfect. Tammy's dad could have still died. Olivier could have still been in a car that caused an accident. The two events didn't have to be connected. There were probably other ways to fracture Tammy and Olivier's relationship and this felt too soapy for me. I don't fully understand why Tammy and Olivier's relationship had to end anyhow. Like, fine, I accept it, but what did Tammy gain from it?

Since those two things happened so close to the end of the book it was really hard for me to look past it and recall what I liked about this story. And what I liked was Tony. It's hard to read stories like this and not think of my dad. While Tony's immigration to America might have been rooted in a jealous moment (seeing his colleague having just gone and come back and all the rewards he reaped), he really did do it for his family's betterment. Reading the dictionary at the front desk in the mornings? His struggles at the tech company and desire to do the best for his family even if it might not have actually been the best?

This book was really easy to fall into. I loved the portrayal of unrealistic family expectations and Tammy having Rory Gilmore energy. I only wish those two things happened differently because it changed this from a book I would have loved to a book I will maybe recommend.

really really liked this one; I read a lot of books about generational, trauma, and family dynamics that come from certain behaviors, and I really found this one not necessarily different, but more unabashedly honest about the struggles of families, trying to break certain cycles, and how to find yourself in life and in the relationships that you end up decidedly choosing, not just inheriting

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Audio for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

The book follows Tony, a Chinese engineer who moves to NYC with his wife and daughter Tammy for a better life, and Oliver, a wealthy lawyer with family secrets, over three decades.

I appreciated how hard it is to move to a foreign city and start over from scratch while facing language barriers and racism. It was hard to like any of the characters aside from Tammy. The bouncing around the timeline was confusing for me.

Austin Ku did a great job narrating the book.