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A carregar... Nights when nothing happened (edição 2020)por Simon Han
Informação Sobre a ObraNights When Nothing Happened por Simon Han
A carregar...
Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. The Changs live an inconspicuous life in Plano, Texas, Patty, the mother has a demanding job in the tech industry, Liang, the father looks more after the house and their two kids Jack and Annabel. Despite their Chinese background, they assimilate and fit in quite well until misunderstanding sets in motion a chain of events which throws the already fragile family equilibrium totally out of balance. Simon Han’s novel “Nights When Nothing Happened” tackle different tricky topics such as moving to another country and trying to fit in, finding your identity when you grow up between different cultures, trying to make a living and having a family at the same time and, most of all, dealing with the fragile psyche of a child. Each chapter provides the reader with the perspective of another family member thus underlining that even though you might belong to the same family, there are always things left unsaid because they are unutterable or because you cannot find the words to express yourself, in the case of the children in the novel: because they are too afraid of saying or doing something wrong. It wasn’t easy for me to sympathise with the characters, they were too far away from my life and unfortunately the novel, though wonderfully narrated, couldn’t bring them closer. Understanding their individual struggles and fears though was easy due to the insight in the characters’ thoughts. Many noteworthy aspects and without any doubt interesting characters, yet, somehow the novel did not really move me. I imagine this will not be a book for everyone. The title is apt. It seems like nothing is happening, but as the story builds, the reader will see the challenges the Chengs, immigrants from China, have in achieving the American Dream. When his parents moved to Texas for university and careers, their son, Jack, remained in China with grandparents. Eventually, he is reunited with his parents and jack soon has a baby sister. While everything may look fine, Patty is consumed by her job in the tech industry and is seldom home. Liang, the father, is a photographer. Both want the benefits of life in America. Preschool Annabelle is sent to a preschool for gifted children and becomes best friends with Eloise. Challenges between the two girls lead to a Thanksgiving dinner with the two families hoping to figure out what went wrong, only the dinner just creates more problems and the Chengs are forced to look at their own fractured family and decide what is important and how can immigrants with their struggles fit in to American society. This is a very thoughtful look at family sacrifices when trying to “better” themselves. sem críticas | adicionar uma crítica
"From the outside, the Chengs seem like poster children for the enduring promise of the American Dream. Once Patty landed a tech job near Dallas, she and Liang grew secure enough to have a second child, and to send for their first from his grandparents back in China. Isn't this what they sacrificed so much for, to be a family? But then little Annabel begins to sleepwalk at night, putting in motion a string of misunderstandings that strips away their façade of suburban normalcy, threatening to set the community against them and turn their dream into tragedy. As the Chengs come undone, they are forced to confront the hidden pain and secret yearnings that have made them fear not only the world outside but one another. How can a man make peace with the terrors of his past? How can a child regain trust in unconditional love? How can a family stop burying its history and forge a way through it, to a more honest intimacy? Set during the early aughts, Nights When Nothing Happened is gripping storytelling immersed in the cross-currents that have reshaped the American landscape, from a prodigious new literary talent."--Provided by publisher. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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This is the story of an immigrant family in which the fact that they are immigrants is important, but not the focus of this novel. Instead, it's about the factors that make a family and how failures to communicate and failures to understand can build up over time.
I liked what Han is doing here and how carefully he built up each character and treated them all with such love. It's interesting to see suburban Texas chosen as the setting for this story and I enjoyed Han's descriptions of it, and how he incorporated how much of each day is spend driving around into the novel. I'm interested in what he writes next. ( )