At the beginning of this book, Real Americans appears to be primarily about the struggle of being a first generation American with Chinese immigrant parents. Lily, one of the main characters, was brought up by her Chinese parents as American as possible, not even learning to speak her parents’ native language. She contemplates her cultural identity as the people she meets make assumptions about her based on her outward appearance and yet she does not feel as connected to her Chinese heritage due to her upbringing. But Real Americans is more complex than that. This is a generational story focusing on Lily, her mother Mei, and Lily’s son, Nick- how in each generation the mother tried to do what was best for her child (also in an attempt to avoid the mistakes of her own parents), but in the end the same mistakes were somehow still made. Mei(May) is a Chinese immigrant from Southern China who fled to America during Mao Zedong’s reign. She worked so hard to give her daughter the opportunities that she did not have as a girl who grew up in China. This isn’t simply a generational saga, as there is a scientific/ethical twist that makes it that much more interesting- I won’t spoil it for you but I was surprised and intrigued by it. This book is thought-provoking in the best way, the characters are realistic and easy to identify with, and the prose is so easy and enjoyable to read. I also haven’t read many books (fiction or otherwise) about China during Mao Zedong’s leadership so it has made me interested to learn more.
If you like generational stories, historical fiction, and ethical quandaries, I bet you’ll enjoy this one too!

Real Americans by Rachel Khong without context:
⏰🦪🥗🍷🌙🧬🍀📺💄🪷

I knew this book was going to be a new favorite just a few chapters in. Historical fiction with a sprinkle of magical realism, romance, and even a bit of mystery. And some science. LOVE!!!

This books spans 3 generations of the Chen family, from the Cultural Revolution in China and the 9/11 attacks, to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was such an insightful and heart-warming read.

I’ve always thought about how I’ve been connected to my grandma since she was born— in her womb, she carried my mother with all her existing eggs. What was my grandma like as a teenager? What did she struggle with? How had she influenced how my mom raised me? Does everything I’ve done thus far already impact— and dictate the personalities & health of—my future grandchildren?

I loved seeing how each character maneuvers through stages of life and how they perceive their parents through their limited understanding. It was an eye opener for sure. One of my favorite parts of the book was getting subtle repeats of the past, through things like salad-oil stains and gifted TV’s.

I loved this book and will definitely reread it in the future. ⭐️ 5 stars!!!

I really really loved this book! 4.5 starts rounding up to 5. It’s a beautiful story about fate and free will and unrequited love and wanting the a better future for our children, even if it leads us into morally grey territory or forces us to make hard, life-changing decisions. I loved all the characters and appreciated the long stretches of the book in their various POVs. The magical realism element of the story requires a little suspension of disbelief and I might have liked a little more explanation there, but overall the storytelling was so beautiful that it didn’t matter!

Real Americans is not the type of book I typically read, but I am so glad the cover caught my attention. It was beautifully written and caught my mind going back over the story anytime I wasn't reading it. I didn't expect the path the book wandered, but the whole story was as lovely as it was heartbreaking.

Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Knopf and Rachel Khong for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Told in three parts (a mother, her son, a grandmother), Real Americans is about being Asian American, family secrets, time, and science.

Struggling after college in New York City, Lily meets her great love, Matthew, who whisks her into his world of tremendous wealth. They have a child, Nico or Nick, and Lily unexpectedly leaves the marriage. Nick, in high school, picks up the story, and unexpectedly connects with his estranged father through an online family ancestry database. Finally, May, at the end of her life, connects with Nick. Together, the three narrators tell the complete story of three generations.

Real Americans is a compelling story; the separate narratives reveal new aspects of the complete story at a pace that kept me engaged. At times, the story felt a little too coincidental, but I liked the characters and was curious enough about their intertwined stories to accept the coincidences.

Lilly Chen is a 22 year old Chinese-American whose genetic scientist mother fled Moa’s oppressive regime and with whom she has a strained relationship. A recent college graduate, working as an unpaid intern in New York City, Lilly meets, falls in love with and marries the heir to a vast pharmaceutical family. Soon after their son is born, a terrible secret causes her to divorce and move with the child to an anonymous life on a Washington island. There she raises him without disclosing his paternal roots or family history, but eventually he locates and initiates a relationship with his father and, by the end of the book has reconnected with his grandmother. Although this multi-generational saga touches on many important themes; racism, class, genetic engineering ethics, identity, I found the plot points to be contrived and the characters under developed.

Beautifully written, I loved this multigenerational Chinese - American storyline.

I really enjoyed all 3 povs, especially Lily's and Mei's.

I adored this book! It is such a beautiful story of the power of forgiveness. I couldn't put this book down. I need to go back now and read her previous novel.

Real Americans, by Rachel Khong, is a family saga spanning several decades. It is a story of familial love and loyalty interspersed with culture clashes and social status. You will find yourself wondering what actually constitutes a “real American” and what exactly makes us “real”. Thought- provoking and candid, Ms. Khong has created a story that will stand the test of time

This captivated me from the start. I loved how the author developed the characters over time. The drama of the storyline did not feel contrived at all. This story explores the connections between parents and their children across generations while mixing in a dose of intrigue.

This novel surprised and delighted me. There were several times throughout where I thought I knew this story, to then discover that it was not what it first led me to believe it to be.

I felt the format brilliant—I loved how it unraveled and tied itself back together. The pacing was engaging— a solid balance of detail and emotion while holding back enough to garner curiosity.
Interesting imperfect characters. Complexity created through multiple perspectives.

Although not necessarily beautiful writing, I found the straightforward and less poetic word choice to match the scientific elements throughout.

Really enjoyed this one. 4.25

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for graciously providing a copy of this novel. My review is entirely voluntary, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you @NetGalley for this advance copy. I have to admit, this was on my kindle and I’d read it at bedtime so it took me a while to read it. The first third of the book dragged and I was slow to get invested in this one. Once part two started, and I saw where this was going, I liked it a lot more. The rich family dynamics are what kept me reading; the science stuff was a tad boring for me.

"Real Americans" more or less defines both "real" and "Americans" through two families, one from China, the other from American, and how their families connect over the years. Without giving much a way, the novel begins in China, where a young girl escapes poverty by running off with a professor from the university during Mao's regime, leaving behind the young man she had been dating. Over the years, she marries the professor and they work at lab focusing on DNA and genetic treatments, and they have a daughter., Lilly. The lab is owned by a wealthy pharmaceutical family, a family that Lilly marries into, and neither she nor Matthew, the man she marries, had any idea their parents worked together. I don't want there to be spoilers, but Matthew and Lilly have a son, Nick, who then takes over the story line, after he discovers some secrets before he graduates from high school, after being estranged from his father since an infant. Then the story returns to Lilly's mother, and ends with Nick and his grandmother connecting, and they find themselves immersed in this same pharmaceutical world. I wish that the gaps between the life-changing events weren't so abrupt, moving us decades later with so little fanfare after one major thing ended and closed that chapter of the novel. Readers being to suspect things may be happening that are revealed later, but I would have liked to have seen all the characters reconnecting, even though, in real lives, this is how many families fall apart, never speaking to each other again. Perhaps, because of this very reason, I'd like to see what happens if that isn't always the ending. Overall, an intriguing novel.

Real Americans started slowly and grew into a multi-generational novel that really touched me. In the first section, Lily, a Chinese American young woman, meets the tall, blond, blue-eyed, handsome, white American who whisks her off her feet. Throughout her section, she constantly expresses her disbelief that Matthew is in love with her. After a while, I just want to shake and say, “just go with it”. Matthew, socially awkward, was initially very guarded about telling Lily about his family’s vast wealth stemming from a pharmaceutical empire. He had dropped his last name and refused to work in the family business. At the wedding, Lily’s parents finally meet Matthew’s. There appears to be recognition!

After many struggles to get pregnant, Lily gives birth to a son, Nico, who is blond, blue-eyed and the spitting image of Matthew. In section two, Nick (Nico) is in his teens living alone with Lily across the country in Washington. She has told him his father wanted nothing to do with him and that he had no other relatives. He was denied any electronic devices and lived a very sheltered existence, Nick, also socially awkward, has one friend who introduces him to video games, the internet and convinces him to do a DNA test to find his father. Of course he is successful.

Nick has his own struggles dealing with anger with his mother, understanding his father, anger with his father, and back again. Khong does an excellent job of taking us through the fallout on children of decisions parents make. How do children reconcile love, anger, belief in doing something their parent or parents believe is in their best interest. Will children listen to explanations or take the hurt, practice avoidance, or commit the same mistakes?

The third section takes place in 2030, centering around Mei, Lily’s mother. Some answers are revealed and more questions are left to ponder. I enjoy books that do not preach ethics but allow the reader to digest the story and cause the reader to go, “What would I have done?” Lily’ section was my least favorite, Nick’s brought nuance to the characters and, to me, Mei’s section was the richest.

Thank you Knopf and NetGalley for this advance copy.

A family saga told in three parts. The mother, Lily, in the 2000s trying to discover who she is and finding the love her life. The son, Nick, in the 2020's, trying to find a path in life and where he comes from. Who is his dad? The grandmother, May, tells her story of growing up in China under Mao's regime and she escaped and immigrated to America.
This book discovers the editing of genes. The claims of the rich, the white, is to remove hereditary disease but race would be possible too. Who does that harm? What does it mean to remove part of your identity.

Talk about an immersive read. The premise of this book took me by surprise in the best way. We read so much about the concept of generational trauma in memoir that it was a treat to see how Khong wove it into this powerful story of fiction. The notion of how our backgrounds might determine our futures, that something so strong is impressed upon our being, carried over from previous generations, leaving an indelible mark, gave it an almost dreamlike quality. I enjoyed the different POVs but the concept of time standing still is really what caught my attention. It is subtle but mighty. This book is about a multigenerational family, the immigrant experience, decision making, heartache, and much more. I think every reader could come away with something different and I’m sure if I re-read it, I would have more insight. I would love to discuss it in book club, I have so many questions. A truly beautiful book and such a fitting title.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 rounded to 4

The short version of my reaction to this book is: a three-generation saga made up of some powerful sections, observations, and especially details, mixed with science fiction, forced into a structure that works against it.

I found the most engaging section by far was the third, Mei's story of surviving being born dirt-poor in China on the eve of Mao's "improvements," her survival of the brutal years of Mao's utter failure at environmental and economic reform, followed by the mad brutality of the Red Guard era. She became a scientist in spite of these difficulties, while enduring a horrible marriage; at that point, the narrative begins to break up as the first two sections are jumbled in via some high end business dealings.

The book began with Mei's daughter Lily as an unpaid intern. There is a quick, rather synopsis of a whirlwind romance. Then the narrative cuts that off to focus on Lily's son Nick, whose section seemed the most unmoored from the rest, in spite of Nick's determination to connect with his grandmother.

Emotionally the story was all over the place; as soon as I'd be drawn into one character's story, the rug was pulled out and I was plunged into scattered anecdotes of another. Meanwhile, the story threads of the previous section are left dangling, unresolved, including an awkward inclusion of what I guess was maybe magical realism? But it served no purpose in the story: without it, the story would be exactly the same.

I did like the last line, but because the emotional threads had been so snarled, it engendered only a brief smile rather than any sense of resolution. The question "Why? What happened?" once again almost overshadowed memory of the details of Mei's life in particular, which I found the strongest part of the book.

But then I'm old, and I remember the horrifying news smuggled out of China about teenagers my own age busy brutalizing the country right back to the Stone Age. I wonder if younger readers will be more involved with the more modern times, and Lily's and Nick's part of the story.

So: a jumble of a review about a structural jumble of a book. Is it worth reading? Absolutely! Despite my impatience with what I consider a messy structure, the individual elements were absorbing and the Chinese paradigm overlying the "American" dream is very much worth pondering.

Highly recommend Real Americans by Rachel Khong. This immigrant story, told by three different perspectives, three generations, really worked for me. The separate sections could almost be stand alone, they have slightly different styles, but all come together beautifully.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

NIck grew up with his Chinese mother Lily and no hints of anything about his American dad Matthew. As long as she can remember Lily has had moments where time seems to stop and wonders if she has some neurological problems. Lily's mother and father are brilliant genetic scientists who work on cures for the most difficult diseases.

This novel is written as three different sections each with a narrator being: Lily, Nick and Lily's mother Mei. The first part about Lily was the best as there wasn't a very long part about Mei and Nick is kind of annoying. Nick does eventually find his father by using DNA websites and they begin to meet up behind Lily's back as she had told Nick that his father didn't want them around. I think the part surrounding Mei's life was very interesting as was their scientific experiments. I found the "Magic" parts about time stopping for Lily and Nick to be rather off as they weren't properly explained and didn't add much to the story.

I didn't even check what this book was about going in because I was just excited to read another book by this author after so enjoying Goodbye, Vitamin 7 years ago. I was delighted to discover that Rachel Khong's writing was again just as good. The characters and social interactions are carefully drawn, terribly bittersweet and interspersed with humor. This book includes a lot of science and history in addition to being a family drama and I was sad to leave the characters when it ended. Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC