Born in immigrants family, Eleanor is a smart, achieved woman who settles beneath her when she married Ellis. Or so her mother thought. She have a sister, Narisa, and both of them we’re treated differently by each their parents, Rita & Liu Jing. Liu Jing favored Narisa and Rita loved the other one more. Eleanor grew up as so-called brainer of the bunch (and an impulsive liar), and Narisa took the rebel label, having to flee from home after her antiques at the age of 17.

Eleanor later become a researcher and marries Elies, and she settles as Ellis’s lab tech. She later having casual relationship (being impulsive, again) at work. Later on, tragedies ensues in the family, and it effected her judgment and actions. It took her a new life to change the way she act, to think before acting.

The storyline and timeline is not linear; it jumped into 3 period. 1st; during Liu Jing escapes to America, 2nd; during the growing ups of Narisa & Eleanor, and 3rd; present day. While I appreciate all the details, some seems a little bit unnecessary. Fret not people, it won’t distract you from the original story.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! Much appreciated.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher of SJP Lit, and the author Elysha Chang for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Chang ties in ideas of success and failure through work, romantic relationships, and family and how they tie in all together. While I find Eleanor's love interests rather uninteresting, her familial relationships remained the most fleshed out and enjoyable to read. Figuring out her parents and Jiajia's backstories was interesting though I wish we could learn more about Narissa. Chang's prose makes for a fast pace tone and a quick read. You'll find yourself turning page after page to deduce each narrative oddity. I don't know if the title encapsulates the novel's essence. Other than a minor ambivalence about the title, Chang's work is exciting and I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future.

The story involves the secrets held by all the members of a Chinese family, the parents who emigrated to the US for a better life, yet couldn't escape their own flaws and what held them back emotionally.

The protagonist, Eleanor, is working hard on ignoring her mother's recent death. She conducts illegal experiments in the lab in which she works, she carries on a relationship with a man there who is not her husband.

The parents, Eleanor's sisters, and the husbands and wives all share their own secrets which they work meticulously hard to hide from one another.

The narrative switches abruptly back and forth between the history of this family, much of which is in China, and present day interactions and decisions.