Heartbreaking and raw, but also so important to read and know the story of Qian and so many others like her. Her memory of detail and honest writing really made you feel like you were there alongside her. She captured so well the agonizing choices that parents make when they want a better life for their families, and the difficulties they face once they are here. Sad and hard, but so good too.

I started this book unknowing what it was about. I kept seeing the recommendations and found its cover colorful and intriguing.
As the story developed, I found myself totally immersed and touched by this very young girl's life story. Imagine being transported into a different 'world', where everything is new, different, scary at times or just amazing, and yet having the resilience to adapt, keep a sense of gratefulness for what you have, work hard and all the while feel like you are carrying adults' responsibilities. What a lesson this book is!
I do hope Qian Julie Wang will consider writing about her young adult years as well. In the meantime, I very highly recommend 'Beautiful Country'!

(Read thanks to NetGalley)

This book was beautifully written and organized. It’s a memoir, but I’m not sure I’ve ever read a memoir that flows so well and feels so like a novel. I don’t love nonfiction because it feels so boring to me, but that was absolutely not the case with Beautiful Country. This book was so fantastic and lovely, but simultaneously full of heartbreak.
For anyone who doesn’t understand their privilege as a born citizen of a country, specifically the US, this is a must-read.


If Qian Julie Wang started writing novels, I’d pick those up in a heartbeat.

In this memoir, Qian Julie Wang describes her life. As a seven year old child, she moved from China to New York in 1994. Everything is a big change for her and her parents. First of all; in China, her parents where professors, in America they have to start all over again in poverty, and have to make ends meet as sweathshop workers. In China, Mei Guo is the translation for America, literally it means ''The Beautiful Country''. But that is not exactly what Qian experiences, she is mostly experiencing hunger and malnutrion, racism, harrassment. She feels completely out of place in her majorly white schools. Luckily she finds her place of peace in reading and the library. Her parents marriage also is suffering from all the pressure on the family to survive. They are undocumented, and there is the constant fear to be asked for their papers, and to be deported back to China. This is also the fear when her mother lands in hospital just before they move to Canada. Qian never gives up though and is truly a brave fighther of all the difficulties she faces, and that leads her to a job as a job as a lawyer, in where she also tries to find a place of the skinny young little girl that she still feels inside her.

I absolutely was blown away by this book. I love memoirs like this because they are just so real, realer than this isn't possible. Recently I have read House of Sticks by Ly Tran, and this book somehow reminded me of that book, as the story of Qian and Ly are quite the same, the only difference they come from Vietnam and China, but their struggle from Asia to New York are quite the same. And for both authors I have the same deep respect. Their struggles are quite harsh (and as I experienced also some hardships I can relate to this story). The book is beautifully written and very gripping and moving.
This is truly one of the best and real books of this year, don't miss it!!

A memoir that details the unspeakable everyday traumas of growing up poor and undocumented in NYC.

Qian Julie Wang speaks of her childhood from the distance of citizenship, therapy, and exceptional success, embracing her little girl self (and her parents) with strong empathy that comes forth in her brutally honest and emotionally aware prose.

As with many great memoirs, the writing style is of someone whose first career is not literary based. The beginning of the book felt a little like reading a flowery college essay, but by the middle I either got used to the writing or Wang found her rhythm.

Either way, the substance of Beautiful Country is in the story not the style. I anticipate this one becoming a must read within the American canon.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC digital copy. I have not been compensated for my opinion and this is an honest review.

Unfortunately, I was unable to finish reading this ARC digital copy before needing to switch to other books that were being archived. The book remains on my Goodreads "want to read" list, and I will update my review to reflect an updated opinion when I finish it at a later date.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang was moving, heart wrenching and powerful. I was so moved by the courageous acts and resourcefulness of Qian at such a young age. It also made me so angry to learn about her early life as the daughter of undocumented immigrants. It was so disturbing to learn and discover the poverty Qian and her parents were forced to live in. Although both of Qian’s parents were well educated and held professional positions in China, their prior status was immediately erased as soon as they were granted entrance to the United States. It seems like there should be mentors or programs for undocumented immigrants with advanced educational degrees and/or professional training to be able to learn how to become contributing citizens with a chance to contribute to a country they longed to live in. I am in awe of how Qian Julie Wang and her mother was able to turn their lives around despite the opposition they faced. All they ever yearned for was understanding and empathy. Beautiful Country was most definitely eye opening. I recommend this book highly.

Thank you to Random House Publishing for allowing me to read Beautiful Country through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

In Beautiful Country, Qian Julie Wang recounts her childhood in NYC, where she and her parents had immigrated from China. She and her family had arrived on tourist visas that soon expired, so they were forced to take whatever menial work was available without papers. This is a tale of deprivation, struggle, and trauma, but the author's voice comes through as strong and resilient.

Wang's memoir gives a frank account of the misery of a childhood spent in poverty, as an outsider, and in constant fear of being deported. It's incredibly interesting and moving.

The majority of this novel is about Qian Julie Wang’s childhood from age 7 through 6th grade. There is some background on the family at the beginning and then author’s notes at the end to complete the story.

I have read a lot of books about immigrants but each one is unique. Many immigrants have come from impoverished countries, having always been poor and are looking for a better life in the United States.

Ms. Wang however, grew up in a childhood that was filled with love, friends, her own room and toys to play with. Her mother was a math professor and her father an English professor. Things were changing for them. Where once they were a thriving family with a good income and a nice home, they were now being watched constantly. Her father “did not like that they were told what to say, and that they could not answer when students asked about something called the Cultural Revolution”. They decided he would come to “Mei Guo”, the beautiful country and would then send for his wife and daughter.

Ba Ba had not warned Ma Ma or Qian about the conditions he was living in. Where once they were professors, now they were working menial jobs under terrible conditions. They shared a tiny apartment that was dirty, with very little to call their own.

Qian quickly learned that they were “different” than other people here, even those that looked like her. They spoke a different language and their food was different. She was told to always say that she was born here, for fear of deportation as they were undocumented immigrants.

In many ways her story is that of so many other immigrants. Qian and her parents never gave up hope and Qian was determined to go to college and beyond.

As I read the memoir I did feel emotional. No one should have to live a life of poverty, little food and terrible living conditions.

Yet in spite of all of these hardships, the author still chose to return to the US for law school and continues to call New York home. She also credits the city library for allowing her to immerse herself in the language and even the culture of the US.

I received an ARC of this memoir from the publisher through NetGalley.

A memoir of a young, undocumented Chinese immigrant in New York., this really held my attention. This book is told by Qian Julie Wang and starts when she is a small child in China and eventually moves to America with her mother and father. We go through her journey of working in a sweatshop with her mother, the hunger she deals with, medical issues with her mother and her years in school as the poor immigrant child (who didn't know English at first and struggled to even understand).

My heart hurt so much for her! I had moments of sadness, pain, happiness, back to sad. What a rollercoaster. And what a way for me to realize how lucky I was to have 3 hot meals as a child.

My only issue with this memoir is the fact that almost the entire book spanned over just one year of her life. She focused so much of the book on this one year and it wasn't until the end where we learned what happened once she grew up. I would have enjoyed learning more of her life through high school. college and as an adult.I would have liked to see more of her life once she moved to Canada with her mom.

It was still a great memoir and I enjoyed reading about her life, albeit very sad! I was glad to see how happy and good it turned out in the end.

Qian and her family come to America and stay illegally. Because of this illegal status they are only able to get low-paying, gruelling work. Her mother and father fight often, they are exhausted, and she is treated unkindly because of how she talks and looks. This is an intimate look at what it was like for her growing up in a hidden community. But we only get to see 5 years of her life in this book. I ended it feeling like it was a cliff-hanger. Where's the rest of the story? I guess for me a memoir should be more than 5 years long. She has lived so much more of her life and I would have liked to know what the looked like, other than the glossing-over we got at the end. I felt very disconnected from her throughout but did appreciate that little glimpse into her young life.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Beautiful Country, a memoir penned by Qian Julie Wang, tells the story of Qian’s childhood and her experiences as a part of an undocumented family in New York City. We begin the story in China before Qian’s father moves to America, or Mei Guo, which translates directly to the titular beautiful country. We follow Qian and her mother on their journey from China to America to meet with her father in New York. From there. the Wang family copes with the fear of deportation, the stress of working extremely long hours in sweatshops, and attempts to find the elusive American Dream. Wang’s storytelling is gorgeous, and her way of transporting the reader to experience the viewpoint of a child through her writing is incredible. Beautiful Country is one of the best memoirs I have ever read, and definitely one of my favorite books of the year. I highly recommend this memoir.
*Note: I received this book as an E-ARC to review from the published and NetGalley.

Overall, this is a fantastic memoir. I can't think of any other memoir that I've encountered where the author shares such a vulnerable part of her life - being a young, undocumented Chinese immigrant in New York.

Wang truly showed all of her vulnerabilities that a young child can have. Insecurities in learning a new language while trying to adapt to an entirely different way of life is something that most of us cannot relate to.

This story will stay with me for awhile as I regularly find that stories that about survival, upheaval, and endurance are ones that I find myself thinking about constantly and will usually recommend to everyone.

I would've given this five stars if the pacing would've been a little more consistent. While I understand that Wang was writing this from the perspective of her child self and children that age do not have consistent pacing, tighter pacing would've cleaned it up just a bit more.

I think it is worth mentioning because I've seen many other reviews complaining about it - that this is a memoir, not an autobiography. A memoir covers a chunk of time in someone's life while an autobiography usually covers a person's entire life.

From my blog: Always With a Book

Even though I had a print copy, I knew that I was going to be listening to this one as soon as I saw that the author herself was narrating it. I often find that when an author narrates their memoir, it is such a powerful experience and that was so true here.

Qian Julie Wang moved to “Mei Guo” (‘Beautiful Country’ in Mandarin – the name her family gave America) when she was seven. She recalls their experience, with a child’s frankness and naivety, which is really what makes this book stand out. She watches her parents, who in China were educated and highly regarded, take menial jobs in America because they were undocumented just to make ends meet. And we see her struggle internally in trying to understand where the beauty is in this new country.

As hard as it was to see the struggles that Qian and her family go through, I also loved seeing her persevere. She teaches herself English by watching TV, she realizes that the library can be safe place with free books! And she makes the most out of her education, not worrying about what anyone else thinks.

I was so moved by this book. It reminded me of the work I used to do with immigrants when I volunteered as a literacy tutor. How many of the students I had met that were well regarded and highly educated in their home countries and now were working minimum wage jobs if they had jobs at all because they had to move or wanted to move and needed to start all over again.

This book is a powerful read that really broke my heart. I had so many reactions to it and to me, those are the best types of reads because I know those are the ones that really stick with me.

In this beautifully written memoir, Qian Julie Wang looks back on her childhood through 6th grade years, from her early life in China, to coming to America where her family overstayed their visa and therefore were undocumented immigrants, living in fear of deportation and struggling to survive financially as well. She really hits you emotionally with a child’s eye view of what it is like to be an immigrant, to not speak the language, to have no money, to be in constant fear of deportation, to try to find your place in the world.

I do wish we had heard more about how she ended up the success she is today beyond one last chapter quickly summing up the rest of her life to date, but I understand that she wanted to focus on her early years.

This was a Read With Jenna pick and definitely would make a good book club book; I think it also would be a great book for middle school or high school English teachers to assign.

Qian Julie Wang tells her story, devastating yet ultimately triumphant, bravely and with no holds barred. The plight of undocumented immigrants in America and the underground networks that both support and exploit them is something she and her family have experienced on their journey in Mei Guo (the titular optimistic nickname for the USA) from their home in China. In China, her mother was a respected computer science professor who published scholarly works and texts, and her father was also a gifted professor. Persecuted by memories of the unjust treatment his family received during the Cultural Revolution, he decided to emigrate to New York, followed by Qian and her mother. As undocumented immigrants, without other family or friends from home, life was filled with poverty and hardship. Qian’s story is eye opening and shocking; the degradation and suffering they endured in modern American times a wake up call. The thought of fear of deportation preventing children and adults from getting food, medical care and education, was something I had shamefully never considered. This is a book that should be on every school curriculum & college reading list. Wang keeps things upbeat, with her wry humor, unstoppable nature and her true appreciation for all the things she had, rather than what she lacked. I really enjoyed the parts about her friendships and her descriptions of the people in her life. She is truly an inspiration and a wonderful writer, her incendiary prose searing into the reader’s heart. I eagerly await her future works!

BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY provides a child's eye view of life in NYC as an undocumented immigrant. Wang's mother brought her to the U.S. from China when she was 7 years old, in 1994, to reunite with her father.

From the foreword: “The Chinese refer to being undocumented colloquially as ‘hei’: being in the dark, being blacked out. And aptly so, because we spent those years shrouded in darkness while wrestling with hope and dignity.”

This book took me a long time to read; while the writing is great, the child perspective slowed me down at times (Wang ranges from 7 to 11 or 12 years old). I found the audiobook a much faster read than the text.

To be sure, I won't soon forget her story, or scenes she described.

I'd recommend this one to fans of The Glass Castle and The Sound of Gravel, with the caveat that the largest focus here seemed to be on the relationship between Wang (/her family) and the U.S., rather than intra-familial relationships.

Whenever I hear about or read a story such as this, I always find myself asking the question, if I was uprooted and placed in a foreign country, with nothing, could I make it? Could I thrive? Realty is it is so hard to even begin to imagine this scenario that I have no idea how it would go, but somehow I cannot believe I would find a successful path. Which Is why the story of Qian Wang so remarkable. Told from the first person perspective, a now full grown Qian Wang goes back in time, to tell the story of her 7 year old self traveling to America to make a new life. You just want to reach through the pages and hug this little girl and tell her that everything will be ok. An inspiring story of strength and perseverance. A rounded tale that ranges from humorous to sad. I hope her story serves as an example for all those out there who have taken the chance, and risked it all for a life in this Beautiful Country. Review posted to Amazon, Goodreads, Litsy, LibraryThing, and Facebook.

"Beautiful Country", by Qian Julie Wang, is a powerful memoir seen through the eyes of a seven year old child growing up as an illegal immigrant in the USA, in poverty and constant fear of being discovered and deported. The memoir starts in China, where the author recalls a happy childhood, living with her parents and near her extended family. Her happy childhood starts to crumble when her father becomes determined to emigrate to the US, and does everything in his power to bring his wife and daughter to live in the US too. Once in America, the author experiences a different kind of childhood, where food on the table and a roof over her head are commodities. Her parents, highly educated professors in China, become unskilled workers in the US. She is forced to mature fast, and see weaknesses in her parents that children at that age usually do not.

This memoir was a heartbreaking story to read. While I admit it wasn't a story I haven't come upon before in other memoirs, there will never be a time when reading about a child growing up in fear and hunger will not be heartbreaking for me. It is a well written book, that evokes a lot of emotions. Thank you to NetGalley, Doubleday, and Qian Julie Wang for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review. This book is out now!

This ARC was offered in exchange of an honest and impartial review:
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4,5*
Pros: A detailed and heart-rending portrait of life as an illegal immigrant in the US, from the PoV of a child. Talks about difficult topics in a no-frills way, such as extreme poverty (hunger, poor living conditions, lack of opportunities), constant fear and anxiety over being discovered and deported, losing your community and culture, and carving out a place to be in a land where you are mistreated and looked down upon. A very important read on persistence, strength and the courage to give up, change and adapt when necessary.
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Cons: Would have loved to read more about the "after".