A Quitter's Paradise

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Alternating between present and past, first and third person narration, the story follows the members of Liu family. It is this Aquino-Marcos meeting that Lito uses to entice his disaffected son, now a middle-aged American journalist. I knew nothing about the author, Elysa Chang, or her work before picking up this novel, and I think I’d read something by her again.

A masterpiece that wrangles several lifetimes of wisdom, loss and heartbreak into a slim novel you can clutch to your chest, pass on to your sharpest, most mercurial friends and say: read this, feel this!I'd like to thank Elysha Chang, Zando Projects and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I also didn’t know what to make of her relationship with Ellis, who featured prominently in the present timeline, but yet as a character, was not developed much — it felt like he could’ve easily been cut out of the story and it wouldn’t have made much difference. I’m pretty sure Chang and I had the same mom growing up, because she captures Eleanor’s mom with such emotional precision that I gasped several times. Summer’s here, the days are longer, and we’re delivering lots of Poured Over Double Shot episodes to help you plan your summer reading, starting with Jonathan Eig and Héctor Tobar on June 1st.At once disarmingly provocative and compulsively readable, A Quitter's Paradise is an unexpectedly funny study of the beauty and contradictions of grief, family bonds, and self-knowledge, exploring the ways we unwittingly guard the secrets of our loved ones, even from ourselves.

Their relationship seems to have been mildly strained in the beginning, but it becomes increasingly obvious to me that Eleanor is struggling with the impacts of her mother’s death, leading to some of the decision she makes throughout the novel. The writing was very good however, and I would definitely read another book by this author with a more linear storyline.Rita and Jing were immigrants from Taiwan, and though they were able to provide a financially stable life for Eleanor and her sister Narisa, their family dynamics were anything but harmonious.

They also offer up the idea that her parents’ experiences have had an impact on her life through the ways they inform the advice they give her. We follow mostly along with Eleanor, whose mother has recently passed, but we flip back and forth between present day and growing up. Our main character is quite messy and I’m so in support of messy and nuanced Asian American protagonists.

It was confusing because the timelines would switch at random, and the back and forth jumps meant most of the character development was lost. She has received fellowships and support from The Center For Fiction, Jerome Foundation, Kundiman, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Swatch Art Residency in Shanghai, Monson Arts, and Willapa Bay AIR.