Fortunately, this was a short book. This was one of those books that I was fine when I was reading it, but I had to force myself to pick it back up. It was well-written, but it just wasn't my cup of tea, so to speak. There were certainly a lot of insightful comments and observations, and some things I could relate to, but it simply didn't hold my interest for a sustained period of time.
A Chinese woman marries an American and they have two children, Noah & Lila. The narrator (we don't know her name) goes out to dinner one night with her husband, Sam, and he unexpectantly announces to her that he is having an affair with a woman named Maggie and he wants a divorce. Being a product of her Chinese environment, she doesn't show any emotion at the restaurant (doesn't want to cause a scene) or in Sam's presence at all. She is deeply affected by this information however. Shortly after learning about her husband's affair, she finds out she has breast cancer. Her best friend, Darlene, suggests that she name the lump (cancer) in her breast. She names it "Maggie".
There are some funny comments in the book. You can tell that the author is intelligent. The story just didn't hold my interest. My favorite character was Darlene, simply because she was a tried and true friend of the narrator. She was the "rock", the foundation for the narrator to start building a new life upon. I didn't connect to any of the characters though, which made it difficult to finish reading. The narrator doesn't even share her breast cancer diagnosis with her husband, which is understandable on one level, but since she was the primary caregiver of their two young children after he left her, I thought it was a weird decision. Anyway, I finished the book because I wanted to give it a fair chance. But again, it wasn't for me.
Wendy's Rating: ***
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