I almost did not finish this book. I am glad I did, though, because the ending made the read worth the effort. Not all translated books work for me, this one was definitely impaired by the narrative style, and I cannot really say if it was the cause of the original writer or not.
This is also a very personal reaction. There may be many out there who can enjoy the story despite the way it is being told, but I am not one of them. That said, by the time the ending rolled around, it felt like a realistic way for the entire tale to be wrapped up. The characters felt three-dimensional at that stage.
It is a scary story and given that it is based on actual incidents, scarier still. In Canada, due to one freak accident, it comes to light that the child they have cared for nearly two decades is not their own. The family now has to come to terms with what that means for everyone involved. At this stage, we are taken into a flashback to show the sequence of events that led up to this point. Now, here is where I had the next issue. The book did a great job picturing China as it was then and the different types of people who lived in cities and villages. But the events were too strange for the mother of the child in question to be satisfied with what she was given in the form of information and otherwise. No substantial backing is given to us to see why someone could sit on that information for twenty years and how it would not be the first thing that strikes the couple when faced with damning paternal and maternal results. That put me off for quite some time.
The last part of the book, with all the various people, was an interesting read. The concept of how people automatically assume 'foreigners' are better off than locals is probably still prevalent today, and it played out in a pretty outrageous but fascinating way. I am not sure if I would recommend this particular work for anyone looking for a book on this topic.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Maybe this could have really been as heartbreaking as it seemed it would be from the description but I found it just a bit flat and one dimensional. I really wanted to have all the feels but it just didn't move me.

This was a heartbreaking read. How would you feel if you discovered twenty years after the birth of your child that he wasn't your biological child. That's the spine of this tale. Lucy and Wei discovered after a traffic accident that that was in actual fact the case with their son Aaran. They had sent him home to like with grandparents in China while they were trying to establish new lives for themselves in Canada. We follow Aaran's path and that of the nanny who stole him and learn more and more about child trafficking and human trafficking, a crime which is far too prevalent in China and in many other countries world wide today. This was a well written story. It was fascinating and emotional too. It's one I won't forget too quickly.

The book raises up some good discussion points on nature vs nurture. Brilliant written and thought provoking.

I don’t know how I feel about this book. Maybe it a lack of understanding of Chinese culture. I can’t understand how when Lucy and Wei find their adoptive son they are willing to hand over money to his adoptive parents. The adoptive parents bought him which is illegal. How they expect to be given money? An’an being taken from his grandparents doesn’t seem right either. I found the whole story unbelievable in places and I wonder how much of it was based on fact.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Are you My Son? is a family drama made for the Lifetime Network. What happens when you find out your 20-year old son isn’t biologically related to you? I was invested in the story immediately because I wanted to find out who An’an really was and what had happened.

A lot of what happened in China didn’t quite make sense to me, I think because of cultural differences. Many Americans might call Auntie’s behavior emotionally abusive.

I would have liked it better if the author had fleshed out the character of the Canadian An’an more. We didn’t really get to know him well before the motorcycle accident, and then after the DNA test, his parents focused on the “real” An’an. And his mother is supposed to be a Psychologist?

I’m glad I read it. It’s a fascinating look at Chinese culture in Canada, Beijing, and villages.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49786072

Is He My Son By Lin Chang is a very strange book. I actually just finished watching Parasite two days ago and have the same feeling finishing this book as I did finishing that movie. What the f...........?? I finished the movie because it had so many Oscar nominations and I felt that it had to get better and I finished this book because I was interested in the topic and kept thinking it was going to get better too. Guess I should trust my first instincts.

Is He My son sounded interesting being that it was about the start of child trafficking in China in 1995. I was interested in learning more about this topic and how and why it occurred. Unfortunately I could not relate to the characters, I did not like anything about them so therefore I could not sympathize with them even though I wanted to. I feel like I lack a connection to Chinese culture. It was common then for Chinese immigrants who were trying to get settled in the United States to send their newborn infants back to China for months to be raised by their parents while they got settled. Throughout the book I kept asking myself why wouldn’t you wait to have children until you were settled if you couldn’t watch them? In Chinese culture it is very important for Chinese families to have a son because their purpose is to support their parents after they retire. I could not relate to this at all either.

I really feel this book could have had potential and could have sparked good discussions about the importance of materialistic things, nurture verses nature, genes verses environment, the difference in different cultures etc. Book clubs could have deep rooted discussions about how you would feel if you raised your child and then at the age of twenty found out he or she wasn’t your child? How would you feel if you found your biological child twenty years later, could you love him unconditionally? So many good discussions could have come out of this book.

If you liked the movie Parasite I say give this book a try. For me something got lost in the translation in this book. Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ebook provided.

I never know or read any Chinese immigration stories until I read this book. Like how the story goes, feel very deeply sad when the parents found out that their son is not their real son. Need more books like this type for generation nowadays.

Chinese immigrants Lucy and Wei find out that their twenty-year-old son, An’an, is not their biological child. Who is An’an and where are his biological parents? What happened to their “real” son? The answers to these questions trace back to their decision to send their newborn son back to China to live with his grandparents for a few months --a common practice for Chinese immigrants who are still in the process of setting up their new lives. But by far the hardest question to answer is whether the close and loving family Lucy and Wei worked so hard to build can ever feel like a “real” family again.

Love love this book