I was intrigued by this memoir based on the synopsis. Overall, it was okay. I thought the first half of the memoir was a bit disjointed and hard to follow. But once I got used to the author’s writing style, it was easier to follow. And I became more invested.

For this one, the stream of consciousness/switching between different stories didn’t work for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

An incredible book so glad I was able to have this book reviewed and covered in High Country News as an asian American it is also so close and personal to consider the way the gaming industry preys upon us. But just beautifully written.

This has everything I look for in a memoir. It is honest and compelling with exceptional prose and an innovative structure. I recommend it highly and will be sharing with library readers.

Thank you to Net Galley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong

Thank you to NetGalley for the early access to this book, although I ended up reading it after the publication date. Jane Wong's cover and title initially attracted me. I didn't know much about her poetry, but I really liked the hermit crab cover, and living in S. Philly for some time, Atlantic City was an easy trip that we often took, brining our son to enjoy the boardwalk. This memoir was one of the best books that I've read this year. Jane Wong's story and the way she unfurls her story was thoroughly original and engaging. Reading the book's description made me think that this was a memoir about growing up as a child of immigrants who owned a Chinese restaurant. While that aspect of Wong's story was a part of her memoir, this book is about so much more. Wong describes growing up Chinese American and finding her identity, fighting against stereotypes and expectations. Her mother and brother figure prominently in the memoir as pillars in her life that continually boost her after challenges, disappointments, and battling feelings of imposter syndrome. Some of the most harrowing moments in the memoir are when Wong discusses her relationships. I was really shocked to read some of the things that her partners said to her. However, it reminded me of getting out of bad relationships. Her descriptions and details of this aspect of her life, along with the stories of her father, resonated with me and stirred up some strong emotions. Although uncomfortable, Wong's story helped me realize the power of writing (and especially poetry) as well as the kind of community that we seek out to help us navigate these perilous parts of our lives.
While reading, I was waiting for stories about her art-- about how she developed as a poet, what her inspirations are, and how she continues to create. Wong writes about this in the last quarter of the book, and this was my favorite part. It was fascinating to learn more about her inspirations, her craft, and the ways in which she views the world. Furthermore, this was the second book I've read in the past 2 years in which Theresa Hak Kyunch Cha's Dictee served as an important reference point (Cathy Part Hong's Minor Feelings, the other), and I made it a point to pick up a copy. This book was enthralling and inspiring, and I could see assigning my students to read sections, especially when we do literacy narratives--- I think there are some great passages to explore about the power of language and poetry in particular, and how we can find inspiration in our experiences, especially in our challenges and some of our sorrows. Furthermore, I loved the way Wong's stories constantly reference her identity and her family. I also think that this would appeal to my students.
One of the parts of the book that stood out the most to me was when Wong describes teaching a rhetoric course in Iowa. At the end of the class, her students were chanting and seemed to love rhetoric. I need to know more about this, and I hope that Wong's next non-poetry book is more about her pedagogy. I really want to know how she can make her course so engaging and exciting for her students. Some aspects of her memoir point to this (love, community, family, culture, food--especially food), but I would love to see a book about her teaching.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this to review. I love memoirs and this one from Jane Wong will stick with me for years to come. Her style writing seems like poetry, weaving seemingly unrelated topics together to tell story after story. Meet Me Tonight tells the story (stories) of Wong's experience as a child of immigrants, as an Asian American woman, as a human living in a world that sometimes asks too much and gives back so little. Great read!

𝑰 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒘 𝒖𝒑 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒎𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒚 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒗𝒆.𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒚 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒎𝒆, 𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒓𝒐𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒖𝒑, 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒕. 𝑴𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒚 𝑰’𝒎 𝒂 𝒑𝒐𝒆𝒕. 𝑴𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒚 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒖𝒏𝒇𝒖𝒓𝒍 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔- 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔- 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓’𝒔 𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒕𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒖𝒆. 𝑴𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒚 𝑰 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔.

This was a gorgeous memoir about life as a restaurant baby with a mother that planted the seed of poetry in Jane’s ears, her heart and soul. Her father owned the Chinese American takeout restaurant on Jersey Shore, one that her mother would work in while he was gambling in Atlantic City, always losing in the end, in fact her father gambled it all away, but what stood out the most is why Asian Americans gravitate toward gambling, immigrants particularly. What it means to be a target, the endless cycle of big dreams that lead to destruction. How it feels growing up with a father driven by being the boss despite his failures, feeding an impossible dream and a mother enduring an arranged marriage, trying to keep her small children fed. The power in disappearance, the joy and wisdom in Jane’s mother, if only there were a wongmom.com website, which is shared with us throughout the book, all her mother’s beautiful advice and humor. Just how did she keep hope alive and look forward to a bright future after the trials she endured?

The world over, it’s truly known that Americans have strong, white teeth that practically glow. It’s a status symbol of the rich, my own father explained to me long ago about dental care he received as a child in Hungary (normally, teeth were just pulled out) leading to a lifetime of dental problems and it was easy for me to understand why it’s just another box to tick in a pretty life. Immigrants struggling to learn a language and build a career that can sustain their family doesn’t leave much room for expensive healthcare, especially for a single mother. People do what they must, seeking out care that is less than stellar, and usually unlicensed. Jane’s mother sacrificed for her children, forgoing proper healthcare, a choice no one should be forced to make. Looking put together, the appearance of wealth is important, a means for respect, she taught her children this. Make like you mean to go on…

There are culture clashes, Jane grew up visiting Chinese medicine shops, vastly different from the sterile pharmacies of the USA. Chinatown, the place they would go for reminders of home, the food, the language, a piece of what has been left behind. There is a ‘necessary roughness’ that her mother must hold tight for survival. It is this toughness that has helped make Jane Wong the successful woman she is today, but she didn’t go through childhood unscathed. What it meant to be Asian while she was growing up surrounded by whiteness is explored, beauty standards the world over and their effects on ethnicity. It is eye-opening, the white effect, so to speak, when her culture itself has been pillaged. How have Western beauty standards crept in the world over, and how does that affect young men and women? You could write a million books about it.

Jane is candid, admitting her every shame, sharing the pattern in her romantic relationships, her past insecurities, confiding what being Asian American is like for her, how her father’s gambling addiction broke her family apart, what it took from him, his abandonment of her family and yet she still manages to share how tender he could be, with his own mother. There is so much heart in this memoir, the poetry of becoming. Instead of blame and rage (though of course she carries it inside of her), she helps us understand how things sour. Writing was her salvation, one her mother encouraged, knowing it was important to her. Jane made it, and she worked hard on her way up, a successful poet born out of the Asian American working class many overlook. Yes, read it!

Publication Date: May 16, 2023

Tin House

Jane Wong is a poet through and through. Her debut memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, May 2023) details her coming-of-age as a “restaurant baby” and child of working-class Chinese American immigrants on the Jersey Shore. The language is effervescent, layered with metaphor and rich with Wong’s biting wit, as she tracks her girlhood to her present self as a poet. The structure of the memoir is non-linear, mirroring the iterative process of grief and self-examination, cycling throughout the book from her childhood to her college and graduate years to the present. This circular form is paired with layered realities throughout the novel. Wong’s critique of capitalism and the American Dream manifests sharply in the false shrouds of wealth tied to her father’s gambling addiction (handled with compassion, nuance, and apt disdain throughout the novel). She eloquently describes the indulgence of Atlantic City’s casinos’ exterior presentations paired with their predatory interiors: “We are talking about Taj Mahal, Caesar’s Palace, Bally. Casinos depicting worlds my father simply couldn’t fathom. At Caesar’s Palace, there were towering white columns so extravagant they held up nothing at all.” Wong tenderly recalls her childhood joy in the comped “luxury” hotel rooms at casinos with her brother as her mother would descend to the basement to retrieve their father gambling away their family savings.
Wong explores the experience of Asian American girlhood and wrestles with the inverse relationship of safety and erasure. Her relationship with food and language is intimately tied with her complicated relationship with displacement, longing, and assimilation. Wong embraces the complexity and incongruity of the diasporic experience and includes all the brutal, difficult, and sticky feelings and experiences that arise. Reality within these spaces is precarious and slippery, constantly shifting and molding to circumstance. Throughout the memoir, she attempts to trace her family ancestry and connect with her roots to ground herself. She also draws from other Asian American writers—citing Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Cathy Park Hong, Maxine Hong Kingston, Marilyn Chin—to position herself, question her surroundings, and cope with her racial melancholia. Wong acknowledges the lineage of Asian writers, artists, and thinkers before her, calling them forth for knowledge and strength.
Ultimately, Wong’s memoir is a love letter to her family and language. She details her struggles with belonging and worthiness throughout her romantic relationships, academia, and professional career due to racism, misogyny and systemic oppression. Wong builds resilience and community throughout her struggles, fostering friendship and family for strength as she finds her own path. Her relationship with her mother is especially tender—Wong lovingly refers to her mother as “wongmom.com,” a search engine for answers and guidance. As she grows into a professional writer and educator, Wong revels in the borderlessness of poetry: “one poem can expand your entangled mind and heart[…] A poem can stay with you your entire life.” She finds power and healing in language and love, weaving a tale of belonging and self-actualization.

Beautifully written, it takes real skill to approach one's own experiences so incisively while remaining inventive in structure and prose. I love memoirs that grow into their own pieces of art.

Happy belated Mother’s Day to wongmom.com!

MEET ME TONIGHT is part-memoir, part-thoroughly researched and intimate book report. Jane Wong hops around in time but threads us through experiences that follow her from childhood in New Jersey to adulthood in Washington: the ways her mom expresses love; her dad’s neglect; her strong bond with her younger brother; the way self-worth distorts, and leaves the door ajar for abuse to sneak through; and the gross but somehow universal fusion of racism and sexism, especially as perpetrated by white men.

Since Jane Wong writes so achingly and vulnerably, I read MEET ME TONIGHT with mixed emotions. Parts of this memoir were us cuddling under a blanket, sharing how healing it is to finally cook your favorite childhood dish on your own or getting secondhand sticky after thinking about enduring summer heat and mosquito bites without AC.

Other times, I was shocked and enraged. I (thankfully?) was never the only Asian person at my school, though that didn’t stop endless microaggressions like being literally confused with OTHER Filipino students and laughing it off, confirming my Asianness by liking boba or pedicures, or people thinking Brenda Song was the only celebrity who could play me in my biopic. What Jane Wong describes in MEET ME TONIGHT is nasty, crusty, foul, heinous, violent displays of racism across all ages that is 0% surprising but 100% painful.

@paradeofcats also movingly describes the family she found in @kundimanforever, who’s aiming to raise $30K this May to continue creating safe spaces and uplifting amazing Asian and Asian American writers like her.

Thank you to NetGalley and @tin_house for an early copy of these gorgeous constellations of memory. When Jane Wong teaches Dictee to her students, she asks: "How did it feel to read this? Where were the heart spaces for you?" Each page of MEET ME TONIGHT is a heart space. This is a comfort book that I'll be peeking into for a hug again and again.

This is a work of pure art. Jane Wong is a talented poet and this memoir, while in prose, still has a lyrical quality to it.

This is another "Asian American" writer book for me and I'm more enriched from having read it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

I love a good memoir and one that takes place in New Jersey, involves Chinese food and the Asian American experience is always going to be on my reading list. The writing here is very poetic even as she touches on painful issues. It's both raw and exquisite.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

A beautiful, vulnerable collection of memoir essays by poet Jane Wong. Her writing is rich with meaning, with a self-deprecating humor. She recounts her childhood in Atlantic City, coming of age with a father who abandons her family, and the fierce love between mother and daughter. She doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of love or her immigrant experiences but wrings meaning out of dentist appointments, ping pong tables and dragonfruit. This is the sort of emotional memoir that sticks with you but also so fresh that it feels a little raw.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City was a wonderful memoir. I liked Wong's approach and honesty. It wasn't a stereotypical "Asian-American" memoir- it had nuances and beauty.

In a series of short and long personal essays, structurally inventive but sticking to a strong and forthright sense of personal voice, Wong traverses many different facets of her life, from her childhood as a “restaurant baby” and onetime pageant competitor in New Jersey, to past abusive relationships—with partners, or with the father who abandoned her family, to her becoming a poet.

Wong treads a lot of familiar tropes, from comments about a smelly lunch to parents and elders cutting fruit as a form of love, but her sparkling prose renders them all fresh. Food isn’t just a metaphor to her—it is worthwhile in itself, spectacular substance that makes her: once her family’s livelihood, always their lifeblood. And it’s also worth noting that these tropes are often employed by professional-class Asian Americans to stand in for any and all trauma, while Wong reframes them through a working-class lens.

Most of all, this book is a love letter to Jane’s mother, also known as “Wongmom.com” for her excellent advice. She’s strong, wise, funny, compassionate, a postal worker, vocally proud of her daughter, one of a kind. Almost all of the short pieces focus on her explicitly, and she is a main character in most of the long ones as well. This memoir is full of heart, and equally full of exquisitely wrought sentences and phrases that made me gasp and take notes. Reading prose by beloved poets is one of my favorite things, and this continues that trend for me.

The nonlinear format of this book really threw me. Although I don't typically mind that format, it only works for me if I have a strong foundation and connection to the characters and the setting. I was expecting the writing to be lyrical and poetic, but it came across to me as more abrasive and trying too hard.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tin House for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I love a truly vulnerable and lyrical memoir, and "Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City" by Jane Wong was exactly that. Wong's memoir is poetic and heartbreakingly honest, and I really felt like I got to know her and her close relatives from her writing. I especially love a mother/daughter memoir, and Wong did an outstanding job telling the story of her mother roots and how their relationship evolves. I also felt like she really captured her sibling relationship in a beautiful way, and I enjoyed getting to know Steven.

One of my favorite passages:
"My mother tends to answer my questions elliptically, and I try my best to sit with her words and really look. I need to see these 'beautiful things.' I want to slurp them up; I've always been hungry for gorgeousness."

As an English major, I particularly felt at home reading about the journey of a writer and the struggles that abound with a literary degree/education.

This memoir is at its core a story about an Asian-American woman, and what that means growing up in a country where one's race determines so much. I was enlightened and saddened by many instances of racism and micro-aggressions that Wong describes throughout her young life.

I am rating this memoir 5 stars. The only thing I would change is the title of the book. The cover art is gorgeous, but to me, the title doesn't really seem to capture the essence of the memoir. Also, perhaps this is just in the unfinished copy, but the headings that use THis tyPE Of fOnT--stylistically, this doesn't work with the tone of Wong's writing, and seems very out of place. Perhaps this will not appear in the final version?

I will post my review on Goodreads closer to publication date.

Jane Wong's memoir, <i>Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City<i>, is fantastic and engaging. I love the poetic prose she employed to tell her story in relation to gender, race, relationships, family, identity, and immigration through the lens as an Asian American woman. I love how the book is able to weave in tenderness and humor, too. I truly enjoyed reading this and highly recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC.

I liked the poetic prose that Jane Wong uses for much of this memoir. She has a poet's acute and perceptive reaction to life experiences.

I think of the book as a very personal memoir of her agonies in growing up among those who don't understand or accept her - in school, university, in Atlantic City, where her parents ran a restaurant until her father deserted the family. Of having to field stereotyping, microaggressions, outright hostility, and more.

Her mother is the force that bolsters her as she goes through one heartbreak after another in her personal relationships with boyfriends. The author does not dwell as much on her rise as a poet and her academic career as an associate professor of creative writing. I recall betrayals on her road to that position as well.

In this very honest memoir, the heartache comes through, as does her remarkably resilient mother who sees Jane through all her stages of despair and grief.

I was heartened to see that the author is a successful writer and teacher because of or in spite of all she has been through.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong was a beautiful book. It had gorgeous writing and was overall a great book.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City was interesting and engaging. Stories from Jane Wong’s life were beautifully woven and interconnected. Reading this book felt like talking to a close confidant. The emotions and memories were raw and emotional. This book felt like reading poetry probably because the author is a poet to begin with. I loved the poetic prose, but if that isn’t your thing, take that into account before reading. Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City also made me interested in checking out Jane Wong’s other works.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City was a 5/5 stars in my book!

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!