This novel was not at all what I was expecting (and having read it and re-read the publisher's blurb, I'm not sure where those expectations originated), but it turned out to be a captivating and very compelling read. It's a family story told from three perspectives in three different time periods: Lily's story in 1999, Nick's in 2021, and Mei's in 2030. Themes of parental expectations, personal choice, racial identity are woven into the story, along with a bit of Chinese history, and some exploration of the science of genetics and the ethics of genetic manipulation. The characters are well-developed and their thoughts, feelings, and experiences very relatable, despite their differences. Even when I wished they'd make different choices, I couldn't help but root for them to achieve their desired goals. I read this book over only three days because I didn't want to put it down. I will surely look for more from this author in the future. 4-1/2 stars.

I was excited to read this book as early reviews noted it as a favorite book of the year for many people whose reading tastes I admire -- all this to say I had very high hopes! For me this book was very good, but I never quite got the magic that other people got.

What I liked: The writing was beautiful. Wonderful descriptions, down to the mundane parts of life that made the characters very relatable and human. I really like the first part of the book which was Lily's story -- the coming of age and finding love and growing a family. There were also so many small connections between the parts of the book if you were really paying attention. Small references to a turn of speech or an object (oysters, for example, appeared in different parts of the book in different ways). There were these little tendrils connecting the three segments of the book together if you read with focus. Finding one was like discovering a little secret.

What worked less for me: I found myself less connected to May's story and her time in China. Normally I love a book set in another part of the world, but I start losing interest on this part of the book. I also was a little tripped up on the slight magical realism element. The scientific developments -- ok no problem. But the stuff about suspension of time sort of threw me off and had me thinking deeply on why it was included.

All in all, it was an excellent book, just missing the sparkle and magic I think it held for a lot of other readers!

Loved Goodbye Vitamin by this author. real Americans shows what a strong writer Khong is--it is nothing like her previous book. It is beautifully written and told through an effective structure: multiple points of view via three connected narrators at three points in time, A slow-burn story of family and belonging, race and identity, hopes and dreams, struggle and achievement, with the three segments coming together nicely, but not necessarily neatly, at the end
What made it a 4 star read for me (vs 5 star) was that the characters' segments were uneven for me--not equally developed and/or appealing--and a science/sci fi element that was difficult to understand and believe in. It was significant to the story but easy enough to let go of and suspend my disbelief.
Highly recommended--engaging and immersive.

Three generations of a family struggle with loving each other, doing what is right for each other, and understanding each other. I liked the first half of the book more. I felt it started to fight for answers in the second half.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my review!

I enjoyed that this book weaves the tales of three Chinese Americans together and gives the reader a glimpse into the challenges that each character faces. I found it difficult to connect to May's story the most of the three, but that might speak to the way that Khong wanted her character to come across, due to her story as an immigrant.

I liked the sci-fi aspect to this book, as someone interested in gene therapy, and the ethical dilemma it introduces. It was satisfying how all three stories came together at the end. Overall this book kept me entertained and will have me thinking back on it for a long time!

This book has so much going for it. Complex characters, multi-generational family saga, family secrets, complicated parent-child relationships, near-future technology, and the Chinese cultural revolution to name a few. And it delivers on all of these themes.

2.5
This one is tricky. This was I'm rating purely on my personsal enjoyment. Because I can see why the book has such a high rating. The story is well plotted, everything comes really well together (it's really nice to see the author tying everything together), and the pacing for this type of book is enjoyable. The ending is pretty good as well.

I really liked Lily's story. The first 30% really had me gripped. It had some small little misteries. Lily was likeable in a way that I could sympathize with her a lot. I was rooting for her happiness, I wanted to follow her story. I wanted to understand her relationship with her parents, especially her mom. And I really wanted to keep seeing about her time thing (I really liked the way this was explained in the end, it was satisfying).

But, I HATED Nick. If there is one thing that completely makes me despise a character is when they take what they have for granted and idolize what they don't. He also starts completely disdaining what he had. He gives grace and chance after chance to strangers, whilst completely shutting other people out without so much as a thought. I just couldn't get past it. I also felt that he was compelled by anger, and he was too old for that behavior in my opinion.

When the book goes to May (around 70% maybe), I was so angry with the book. But May's story was so good. I really liked the science involved in her section as well and all the ideas presented. I think May's story is the most interesting one.

I wish the book only had Lily's and May's sections. They are not perfect and they make frustrating decisions as well. I loved their character development. But Nick was just one of the type of people that irritates me the most; I also didn't think he went through any development, certain people just unsurprisingly didn't turn out the way he wanted them to be and so he had no choice other than what he did (trying to not spoil things).

If there was no Nick section in the book, this would probably be a 4. But I can't say I enjoyed the book with the overall experience.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

Money, luck, control and the pursuit of the American dream. How much, if any, control do we have over our lives? Khong shares the stories of three generations of Chinese Americans, Lily, her son Nick, and her mother Mei.

My favorite section was the story of Mei and how she endured the Chinese Cultural Revolution, became a scientist and ended up in America. The conversation surrounding epigenetics and biology was quite fascinating and thought provoking. I could have read a whole book just on Mei.

While the book isn’t perfect (I think Khong attempted too much and a lot was underdeveloped) it left me with a lot to ponder, which is the mark of a book worth reading in my opinion.

“Our DNA encodes for innumerable possible people,” Mei thinks, “and yet it’s you and I who are here – winners in a stupefying lottery.”

“In the act of giving I conceded that I had more than I needed, and someone had far less than they did,” Lily thinks, faced with a beggar. “It shattered the illusion of my own free will – that I had made choices, and those choices had resulted in my life.”

3.5 stars, rounding up. I'm afraid I don't have a lot to say about this one. I liked it. It's good. But I waited too long to review it after having finished it, and now much of the finer details have fled my brain. (Not a great sign for a book to be forgotten after less than a month, but let's blame that on me having largely read it while traveling, not on the book itself.)

This is a fascinating story about the birth of a boy. The first third of the story is told by his mother, the second third is told by the boy starting at age 15, and the last third is told by his grandmother.

This well-written, compelling story is basically about the control that science has over the birth of future humans, and humanity as a whole. The reader gets a very personal point-of-view from each of the three main characters, how their decisions have affected each other, and could affect those in the future.

It was an interesting story and really made me think!

I’d like to thank NetGalley, Rachel Khong, and Knopf for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

A cracking good, unputdownable three-part novel about generations of a Chinese/Chinese American family that is seamlessly rich with thought-provoking ideas about families, fortune, and inheritance.

We start with the middle generation at the end of the 20th century; Lily Chen is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and is an unpaid intern at a New York media company. At a holiday party, she meets Matthew, an affluent White American, and despite their differences they fall in love.

Next we move to a small island in Washington in 2021, where Lily now lives with her son Nick. Nick feels like an outsider socially, so he tries to track down his father who Lily is completely silent about.

Finally we are back in New York in 2030 where Nick is now working for a start-up but he is tracked down by his grandmother, Lily’s mother, who tells him (and us) her story of life in China before and after Mao and then her life in America. This final section brings all three generations and their stories into a coherent whole.

The unusual chronology allows the author to delve into ideas about how an individual’s identity is formed by what is passed through genetic inheritance as well as the handing down of love and hopes through the generations. Linked to this is the theme of luck and how that can affect a person’s future. These are so well-woven into the narrative that they become an organic part of the Chen family’s story without being their only story.

I ripped through this over a weekend and was absolutely engrossed, particularly by May’s evocation of life during the cultural revolution. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

I found this book to be a very enjoyable and unique read. There were complicated stories of love and family embedded across the three different time periods along with themes as wide-ranging as immigration and genetic engineering. I appreciated this narrative that was multi-layered in several ways and really immersed the reader into the lives of the characters at each time period. The one thing I would change about this book was the ending, which I found to be a bit abrupt and unsatisfying. Perhaps that was the point though, and I overall really enjoyed reading this one.

Thanks to Knopf for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions below are my own.

Real Americans follows three generations of a Chinese American family. A mother and daughter as well as the grandson. We see their love lives, their careers and their struggles. Each generation has some strain with the previous one they must confront and find a way to overcome.

I really liked the mix of multi-generational historical fiction with cutting edge science. So many books these days explore the need for belonging that nearly everyone struggles with. In each of these generations, the character we are with is not enough of something (Chinese, American, rich, socially adept etc). The ease with which you could immerse in each generation was really well done, I often struggle with time leaps but the way this was told was really compelling for me. I really cared about each character and was sad when their chapters were over and yet the way the generations are laid out just works so beautifully. It's just a book dripping with the complex realities of humanity and our need to be perfect balanced with the lifelong realization that we are not and will never be.

Okay, this book really wasn’t for me and I am I am going to attempt to explain why in a fair, cohesive way.

1. I felt like the characters were extremely underdeveloped, and a book that is meant to be a multigenerational family story needs fully developed characters. I would be hard pressed to describe any of the main characters beyond a few superficial observations. I felt as if I was kept an arms length away from them, as if they were hiding something from me.
2. This is told in three parts, in three different perspectives, and each part felt like a different genre…which COULD be cool, but these just felt disjointed. It felt as if the author didn’t want to fully commit to anything, resulting in the book feeling all over the place. I also didn’t like that each POV section ended right as something big happened - that ties back into character development. We never see the development because the section ends right when it might happen.
3. There is a really misplaced, underdeveloped aspect of magical realism that really took me out of the story.
4. Lots of telling. Very little showing, very little feeling. Some lovely sentences & observations! But ultimately, I just felt bored and uninvested.

So yeah, this one was just not a good match for me. That’s not to say it’s a bad book, just not one that worked for me.

3.5 multi-layered stars, rounded up to 4
“I didn’t even know what language it was. If I could speak it, I would have asked for her story, and would have listened. Hearing a story – what did it accomplish? Nothing and everything.”

While easy to read, Real Americans is a multi-layered story that dives into eugenics, genetic research, racism, women in science and Asian immigrant stories. It provides many interesting topics for a book discussion, while centering on three generations of a Chinese family now living in the United States.

Part One focuses on Lily, a poor young Chinese American woman in New York City. She falls in love with a rich white man, Matthew, marries and becomes a mom. Her son Nick gets the starring role in Part Two. He grows from a smart teenager to a sometimes-insecure college student to a young man. I thought the grandmother’s (May) story the most interesting, especially her early life in China. Her story fills decades, from desperately poor young girl in China to hard-working driven student to reluctant mother to grandmother. The family dynamics in Real Americans are strong, decisions affecting generations.

If you like books about family relationships, functional and not, you will enjoy Real Americans. For those looking for an exciting plot, look elsewhere. I sometimes grew frustrated at the selfishness in some characters, though Khong did a thorough job of helping the reader understand character’s behavior was linked to their life experiences. If you’re looking for a feel-good, all-will-be-well hopeful book, this isn’t it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Maybe loneliness is in our genetic makeup, though, and no matter what I did, who I met, I would always be alone."

#realamericans has been sitting in my TBR pile for a few months, but when I saw that @readwithjenna has chosen it for her May book, I jumped in. I really liked it. I appreciated the multiple POV (Nick, May and Lily, in that order) and that everything isn't spelled out for the reader. @rrrrrrrachelkhong asks lots of tough questions, and lets us figure out the answers on our own, b/c for each of us, they are different.

P.S. Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC.

This book sucked me in right away. Maybe it was the coming of age around the same time as myself, with the turn of the century talk and 911, and the writing kept the story moving along and really only gave you what was needed and not a lot of extra fluff.
When I got to the end of Lily's section, ending on a cliff hanger, I was annoyed that it started over from her son's POV 17 years later, so I knew I wasn't going to find out what happened with her mom. Not long after my frustration I was again sucked into the story. It was predictable enough but at the same time a bit unbelievable with what Nick had and didn't have and what would be hidden from his mom. Again, with a cliff hanger at the end lead into May's story.
I'm not sure the title or the synopsis I read before starting gave me an idea of what to expect. It did give a lot of real examples of where we are today, how we got here, and what to be cautious of when wanting a future for our country and world. The messaging was subtle which I enjoy. Nothing felt forced, the story kept moving. I would and have been recommending this to anyone who loves to read.

I knew I was going to adore this one. Khong has immense talent, I already can’t wait to reread. There were lines SO beautifully written and so poignant. the cycles in this book were magnificent. I could’ve spent infinitely longer with every character, would take full novels about their journeys. in some ways, I feel like we only scratched the surface, something I usually find dissatisfying. but in others, isn’t that the point? To have spent a moment and feeling like the time you have isn’t enough? To want more, to stretch it out, to burrow into every facet of someone’s life? Selfishly, I do want it, to see how Lily and Matthew ended, to hear Nick and Lily reconnect, to know Lily and May’s final conversations. I almost googled Matthew Maier to see what happened to him and Lily, that’s how good this was.

Rachel Khong’s new novel Real Americans is thought-provoking, elegant, compelling, and beautifully written from start to finish. In concise but evocative prose, Khong raises of questions of what makes us who we are—are we defined by identities we choose for ourselves, by our heritage, our DNA, our upbringings, our choices, or some combination? Can we choose our destinies, as individuals, as families, as humanity?

Real Americans is told in three parts: first, Lily, a Chinese-American young woman scraping by in NYC as an unpaid intern at the dawn of the millennium, when she meets and falls for the rich, handsome, and white nephew of the owner of the newspaper where she works. The middle third of the book is in the perspective of her son, Nick, a teenage boy raised by his single, Asian-American mother on a remote island in Washington state. As he moves through adolescence and starts college, he wrestles with and discovers his heritage and his racial identity as a mixed race person. Finally, Lily’s mother Mei completes the book, telling the story of her life as a young scientist during the Chinese Cultural Revolution through her present as an isolated older woman in America, looking back on the choices that defined her life.

I am a big fan of any intergenerational family story, and Khong delivers on the heart and depth that define the format. She also imbues the story with some sci-fi or magical realism elements that deepen and strengthen the important questions at the heart of the book.

In all, this is a terrific read, that fans of Pachinko, Homegoing, Crying in H Mart and more would love. This is a great choice for book clubs and for reading with your family. 5 stars!

I have been waiting for a new Rachel Khong novel since reading Goodbye Vitamin back in 2017. This novel exceeded my expectations in so many ways. I love that it was divided into three parts, but a part of me wanted to follow Lily throughout the entire novel.