Central Places by Delia Cai

This book involves a 25-year-old Chinese American woman, named Audrey and the struggles she has with her parents, mostly her mother, who are Chinese immigrants. After high school and college, Audrey moves to New York City to help her forget her past life in Hickory Grove, Illinois. She leaves behind her parents, who she rarely visits as well as her best friend Kristen and Kyle, who she had a crush on forever. She tries to forget that life moving forward. She found a well-paid job working for a magazine, she is currently engaged to Ben, a photojournalist whose parents are exactly who Audrey always dreamed of when growing up. When Audrey’s father begins to have some medical issues, she is forced to return to her childhood home. She brings with her her Manhattan raised fiancé Ben to meet her parents and to see where she came from. Ben knows very little about her life before. She is embarrassed about her parents and their immigrant ways. While taking Ben around town, Audrey happens to meet up with Kyle. Have her feelings towards him changed? Does she still have that crush on him? During this week at home, Audrey is forced to confront many issues. How she deals with them is the heart of the story. At times, I had empathy for her, at other times, I considered her to be a bratty little child who always needs to get her own way. As her Manhattan life begins to unravel, Audrey needs to look inside herself and make major decisions.
I appreciated that by the end of the story, Audrey begins to grow up and act more like an adult.
The flow of the story made this book an easy read. The author grabbed you from the start and you wanted to continue to discover how Audrey confronts her many issues.
Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC of Central Places in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Central Places is a well-written story about a second generation Chinese immigrant daughter who finally returns to her parents' home in small town Illinois from New York City. Audrey Zhou is 28 and has built a life for herself in New York. For the first time in 8 years, she returns home to see her parents and confront her past. Her experience is very relatable and Delia Cai does a wonderful job illustrating the regression many of us go through when we're with our families.

Her parents moved to Illinois from China before she was born, seeking better lives. Audrey has always felt stuck between two cultures (American and Chinese) and now two places (New York and Illinois). At the suggestion of her white fiancé, affluent New Yorker, Ben, she returns home for her father's medical procedure and to introduce them.

I was drawn in immediately, but Audrey's character could be incredibly frustrating at times. She thinks very selfishly and acts in self-destructive ways. I enjoyed her character arc and found it interesting that she couldn't mature until she examined her childhood and relationships with her parents. Though she is nearing 30, I would consider this a coming-of-age story as she learns to let go of things that are no longer serving her. I listened to the audiobook, which was perfectly narrated by Natalie Naudus.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Central Places is witty and heartfelt, perfectly capturing the feeling of going home to a place that’s suddenly new and foreign. I could feel myself relating with the main character throughout and understood her struggles. My one criticism would be that it felt a little slow (not in a literary fiction way, but in a “it’s getting hard to continue” way). Overall a great read!

Audrey Zhou has worked hard to leave her high school persona behind. She's moved to New York City, gotten a high-paying job, and fallen in love. She also hasn't been home in years, so when her dad calls saying he's having a procedure she decides it's time to go back...with her fiancé. Back home, she regresses into her teenage self but also starts to examine how she got where she is. Can she rebuild her relationships without losing herself?

I really loved "Central Places" by Delia Cai. I found myself being able to relate to many parts of the story, and this was something that had intrigued me from the start. While the main character, Audrey, could be frustrating at times, it's important to acknowledge the array of emotions and cultural shifts she makes and feels per day. The amount of complexities that went into the writing of each character really stood out to me and made the novel shine. I recommend "Central Places" to anyone but especially those who have gone through or are in similar situations as the protagonist.

As the child of first generation immigrants, I found this book very enlightening. The experience of living in two worlds was very true to life. It is not always easy living in two different worlds - one world of school and friendships and another world of a native language and culture that you live in. I highly recommend this book for anyone who grew up that way.

Wow, I feel like Delia Cai took my entire adolescent experience right out of my brain. Although there are many differences between Audrey's life and my own in the smaller details, we have so much in common when it comes to the Chinese-American experience. Her tenuous relationship with her family and her uneasy feeling of never quite belonging anywhere are obstacles I have had to contend with. Audrey's voice conveys her inner struggles clearly and with a great deal of self-awareness.

"What was that like, to just confidently ask things of the world without wondering if someone would be annoyed by the burden of your needs?"

Throughout the book, there are times when Audrey comes across as bratty, which makes her a more unlikable character but also a more realistic one. Although she does have to contend with bigotry due to her race, particularly in her small town, she also possesses numerous privileges and displays a sense of entitlement.

Nevertheless, the author manages to capture the complicated family dynamics between Audrey and her parents perfectly, almost mirroring exactly what I've experienced with my own parents, and I'm sure many others as well. The language barrier and cultural gaps are difficult to overcome, even when both sides desperately want to understand the other better. I am familiar with the feelings of awkwardness and discomfort when speaking about emotions and vulnerable topics, and I have never learned to navigate or overcome them, so it is much easier just to avoid them completely. It's a sad cycle that is hard to break. I wish the dialogue said by Audrey's parents had been written in a more authentic way. It was much too fluent and grammatically correct considering they are not native speakers and still speak Mandarin primarily. If Mandarin was the language actually being spoken in many of these circumstances, that was not specified and Audrey's understanding would have been limited.

There were points in which the story moves fairly slowly, but for a debut, this was an impressive undertaking and a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.

In Central Places Audrey Zhou and her fiancé, Ben, travel from NYC back to Hickory Grove, IL, the small town where Audrey grew up. When she graduated high school, Audrey left and never looked back. She has since built the life she wanted in NYC and hasn’t been home in 8 years. She’s tense, worried about her impossible to please Mom, and her well-intentioned but sometimes awkward Dad, the only family of Chinese immigrants in their small town.

While Audrey is anxious about Ben’s perception of her previous life and her parents’ perception of him, she is also tense about former friendships that ended by her abandonment when she left for college, and her high school crush, Kyle, who she and Ben run into at Walmart. This trip home forces Audrey to confront her past and consider what she wants for her future.

I felt for Audrey regarding her mom, who was distant, judgmental, and critical. Nothing seemed good enough for her, Audrey included. That said, I really did not like Audrey either! I wanted to see the story through but she didn’t grow on me. If anything, I came to dislike her more, largely due to her behavior and interactions with almost everyone at home, and had a hard time connecting to Central Places as much as I hoped to because of this dislike.

Audrey Zhou, the main character in Central Places by Delia Cai, has it all--the right fiancé, the right job, and residence in the best city in the world. Her life is far from that of her high school years as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, living in a midwestern, middle-class, predominantly white town, and striving not to feel like an outcast but doing everything she can to get out.

Before she can proceed with her dream life, it's time to meet the parents, so she brings her fiancé Ben to her hometown of Hickory Grove, Illinois at Christmastime. She hasn't been back in years, finds it hard to reconcile her tough relationship with her parents, and pretty much avoided contact with her former friends and classmates. Will she be able to mesh her current cosmopolitan life with her former small town one?

I liked the premise of the book because I think many people can relate to moving away from their hometown and recognizing that they're different from the person they were in high school. This can be especially true if you've felt like an outcast or burned a few bridges along the way. You want to show everyone you're not that anxious, awkward person that didn't stand out and wasn't popular. But it isn't as simple as that, and this book demonstrates it.

Audrey may be successful and content with her status in life, but she's forgotten others along the way. She comes back uncomfortable with her family and friends and seems quite snobby in many ways. She's told everyone that she now associates with in New York that she hated living in Hickory Grove. Everything she experiences during her trip home seems tinged with scorn and not sentimentality. At times, she seems incredibly spoiled and ungrateful for what she has now and what she had then. Her fiancé who's a freelance photographer, possible trust-fund kid, from New York City, acts like the place is beneath him.

During the trip, Audrey meets up with her old crush Kyle who's now a teacher and living with his mom in town. She claims to have held a candle for him back in high school, and they spent a summer together as each other's closest friend before she went off to college. I just didn't see the chemistry or the connection they held together. And it seemed totally unlikely that they connected at all. I didn't buy this relationship.

Plus, I could relate more to her best friend Kristen who rebuffs her when they encounter one another at a Christmas concert at the local church, which serves as a social center for the townspeople as well. Audrey knows they didn't stay in touch but seems to think that they can pick up where they left off. She didn't treat Kristen well, so I couldn't feel empathy for her.

Towards the end of the book, she comes to some realizations about who she is and what she wants, but it's sort of out of the blue. It's not a gradual warming up to how and where she grew up. The book goes from her being embarrassed or sneering at the small town lifestyle to all of a sudden reconciling it. It was too abrupt a change, especially when she seemed to hate it so much. Her mom, though, was pretty horrible at times, so I can understand why she wanted to flee her.

I liked the book, the writing is very good, and I think this author has great potential. The fact that she's written for Vanity Fair sold me because everyone who writes for that magazine is phenomenal. But the main character was not likeable many times to me, her fiancé was a jerk, and I could not feel that much empathy for her when she seemed ungrateful and dismissive. Despite that, this is a solid debut, ends differently than I expected, and it kept me reading.

I enjoyed the first and last thirds of the book, but the middle dragged on. This was almost a DNF for me because of that. The main character did a lot of eye rolling, sighing, and sarcasm. etc., which was made her unlikable for me. Grant it, her mother was difficult, but her father made up for it. I hate giving a negative review, but there you have it.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of net galley in exchange for my honest review.

"I'm at the top of the St. Louis arch, cracking under pressure as my mother screams at me to smile."

I thought I signed up for a cute story about young woman finally visiting home after 8 years and settling previous trauma.. but what I received was a seemingly well-adjusted woman who sets her life on fire over the holidays once faced with past demons. All in all, I'm still here for it and I found this book to be an extremely engaging read.

I'm very impressed with the organization and writing style, particularly given that this is Delia Cai's debut novel. This is a largely character-driven plot, but still paced very well, with just enough plot to keep your mind from wandering.

Cai perfectly captures the sense of bittersweet nostalgia upon revisiting adolescence; the surge of memories resurfacing, while at the same time the discomfort creeping in. Audrey's portrayed experience raise by immigrant parents was also intricately written and expertly executed. The awkward conversations where strangers try to gauge whether you were the "poor" immigrant, the "broke" immigrant, or whether your family came from money or for opportunity, and how regardless of the response to this, there is some type of undiscussed comparison of 'American Dream vs immigrant struggle' that many first gen children never signed up to be part of. I also loved how Cai portrayed the feeling of bringing friends/partners home to meet your immigrant family; whether during adolescence or into adulthood, there is a sense of vulnerability, or introducing judgement on your upbringing.

While the main character, Audrey, came off a bit overdramatic and immature for 27, I enjoyed following along her character development and growth across her completely chaotic holiday trip. Highly recommend this very tightly packed, deep dive into the examining one's past before moving forward.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for giving me the opportunity to read and review an advanced reader's copy.

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Random House-Ballantine, and Delia Cai for an ARC of this book!**

You can ALWAYS go home again...but in Audrey's case, maybe you just shouldn't.

From Central Illinois to Central Park: Audrey Zhou left her small town of Hickory Grove behind many years ago and has put down roots in NYC, where she has a successful career and a well-to-do hunky fiance Ben, who pays for the couple's brownstone. When Christmas rolls around, Audrey realizes it's time to take Ben home to Meet The Parents and see just how Hickory Grove informed Audrey's younger years.

When she gets there, however, all of the unfinished business she left behind comes rushing back to meet her in the form of bitter ex-friends, and a certain high school crush, Kyle, who still makes her heart go pitter-patter. Will this trip be the defining and healing moment Audrey has been waiting for before settling into marital bliss with Ben? Or will the pain and the distance she has put between herself and her former friends (and her lingering feelings for Kyle) send her spiraling back into unhealthy patterns...and change the trajectory of her life forever?

Delia Cai comes to the world of fiction from the world of Vanity Fair, where she was vanities correspondent: and in some ways, this is VERY evident in her characterization of the self-absorbed and selfish character that is Audrey Zhou. I started off this read thinking I'd connect with her as an aspiring City Mouse who actually spent a few years in Central Illinois myself...but other than tossing in references to Menard's and aimlessly wasting time driving around (because there wasn't much else to do) and of course Audrey's love for the Harry Potter books, there wasn't too much I'd consider redeemable in this character. Honestly, it seemed like the character was MUCH younger than she actually was and I kept shaking my head while reading about bad decision after bad decision.

It was hard to be invested in Audrey's emotional journey or to feel any sympathy towards her when it was shown over and over that she CREATED most of her own problems with her friendships (and even had the self awareness to admit it!) and yet couldn't understand why she wasn't welcomed back with open arms. The author also mentions the character's obsession with Matcha tea and how it was SO unavailable in Central Illinois...another fact that isn't quite true and yet was repeated over and over, along with scoffing at Panera and all sorts of behavior that was impolite at best. Audrey also went back and forth between being irritated by Ben and thinking he was the Best Guy Ever, so I honestly couldn't understand why he put up with her in the first place.

Add to all of this to a VERY predictable third act conflict (basically a foregone conclusion) and it was hard to stop rolling my eyes. Reading this directly after a lovely and well-written bildungsroman further emphasized the lack of growth in the main character of this book, and had me wishing that, above all else, she'd just grow up

2.5 stars, rounded up

Audrey and Ben are a classic Brooklyn duo. He grew up in the city, raised by wealthy-ish parents who encouraged him to pursue his dreams. She grew up in small-town Illinois, raised by Chinese immigrants who demanded she be the best. Now they're engaged, and Ben wants to meet Audrey's parents. But when they travel to Audrey's childhood home, the pains and betrayals of her adolescence are awakened, revealing the cracks in Audrey's city persona and the fissures in Audrey and Ben's relationship.

This was such a wonderful depiction of young adulthood as a series of migrations and displacements. Audrey feels set apart from her family and friends as a teenager; from her fiance and fellow young urbanites as an adult, and then - in a new and unexpected way - from her former classmates when she returns home. Her journey echoes her parents' departure from their own home as young adults, and contrasts with Ben's ability to feel at home all over the world.

Audrey wasn't always the easiest character to like. She was self-centered, snobby, and demanding, and she was undeservedly angry at most of the other characters for most of the book. And yet her narration was both highly readable (due to terrific writing) and compelling (due to pitch-perfect attention to Audrey's emotions). I wouldn't want to be friends with Audrey in real life, but I really wanted to read her story.

Beautiful writing with realistic characters and an interesting premise with the reconciliation of the past and present. A great debut from Delia Cai!

Read it in one day and basically one sitting, then went to a book release event with the author where she said part of why she wrote the book was to have something to hold up to other people and say “do you feel this way too?” Safe to say that my answer would be a definitive yes.

As a first generation ABC, this book was relatable on so many levels for me - I even live in Brooklyn and have the same initials as the main character. The dynamics of filial piety, feeling othered in your home country, feeling distant from your “home self” all resonated deeply with me. Part of me wished that the love triangle hadn’t been such a big part of the plot as I felt it distracted from the diaspora themes that resonated with me more, but I recognize that it was also a plot device for the purposes of the main character’s growth. Overall, this was an excellent and deeply moving debut and I look forward to reading whatever Delia Cai writes next.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

so I finished @deeeliacai Central Places while I was putting the baby I nanny to sleep. That’s how gripped I was that I couldn’t bear to wait another 20 min before I could read more. Audrey is a complex character who honestly has no idea what she wants. She has built an entire life for herself in NY and keeps it separate from her childhood growing up in Illinois. The stress of letting these worlds collide festers and ends up presenting itself in so many regrettable ways. Audrey bears the stresses and delights of having immigrant parents, and as someone with an immigrant mother myself, I really found myself feeling like someone else out there understands. Go read #CentralPlaces if you liked Yolk by Mary K. Choi & You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi.

I was afraid this would veer too much into Sweet Home Alabama territory, but there's more nuance and less stereotyping here. While the transitions are a little clunky--some of the character motivations are unclear or don't make sense--Audrey's reframing of her sense of self is gradual enough to feel realistic and relatable; she doesn't transform overnight from the NYC gal she's become over the past several years. Her mother, though harsh, also becomes a sympathetic character eventually. Overall, this is a reflective yet entertaining book on what one's idea of home and family can become.

I liked this one but didn't love it. The characters are complex. I really struggled with actually liking the characters. Audrey was awful, her parents were awful, and Ben was only great for a minute. Many parts of the story spoke to me but a lot was lost on me too. Some things just weren't needed. I enjoyed her talking to people from her past and resolving issues that she ran from. I appreciate that. I do recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Random House Publishing/ Ballantine Books for the gifted e-book ❤️

Wow, this was a really great debut novel. I felt like this was an accurate portrayal of a lot of AAPI kids and their relationships with their parents. I liked how realistic this felt! As someone who is AAPI it really resonated with me. I understood the struggles of our MCs complication relationship with her mother.

I did struggle at times to like Audrey. She felt immature and inconsiderate on many occasions. But seeing her character development was enjoyable. The book was beautifully written and I really enjoyed the ending. Well paced, and hauntingly honest. I look forward to future work from this author.

4 stars out of 5! Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

central places centers around audrey zhou, who after moving out of her hometown in the midwest to new york is returning for the first time in a while, with her fiancée in tow. this visit is incredibly revealing for audrey’s character and as she visits old friends and tackles her tumultuous relationship with her parents, she unwittingly embarks on a journey of self discovery.

truly, this entire book feels like catharsis for everyone involved: me, the author, and audrey, the character were reading about. and it kind of makes it hard to read in the best way. the entire time i was reading i felt my heart being squeezed and a vague sense of discomfort which i think makes this book so exemplary. even though i didn’t grow up in the midwest, the child of immigrant experience is truly similar for us all and i both related to audrey incredibly so and enjoyed in discovering her differing viewpoint regarding her upbringing and culture. i don’t have any thoughts besides i believe that the author poured her entire being into this book and i couldn’t be more grateful because in turn, i feel changed. this is a book that you can’t really sit down and read casually and lucky for me i love books that have the ability to wreck me! i did not cry but i got very emotional multiple times and i think that’s even more harder to do. thank you to netgalley and random house for the arc!