While I don’t really feel like I’m in a reading slump, I did feel uninspired about what to read next. Yes, there are still plenty of unread novels sitting on the shelves at my house, but sometimes the local library is calling. Looking for inspiration, I sought out a must-read list from People. They usually have good recommendations in their magazine, so I was trusting of their online suggestions, as well.
I settled on The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwon mainly because it was available, but the premise did sound intriguing. With that being said, the first half of the novel didn’t do much to reel me in, though in time I did come to love the parts of the novel from our main narrator, Jasmine. Her background in China is fraught with labor abuse, love and intimacy abuse, and a stolen childhood. When she was just fourteen she was unofficially married to politician Wen and forever separated from her best friend, Anthony. Struggling to give him a son while China was still under the one child policy, she had a baby girl and was then told that she died shortly after birth.
It was some time later when she discovered that her daughter was still alive. From that moment on she began her secret plan to get her back. Everything finally came to a head once her grandmother passed and she relied on “snake heads” for passage to the “beautiful country.” Also known as the United States, but more specifically New York City. This is 2007, so Jasmine is able to get access to some things, but without the proper paperwork, making money definitely has to be done under the table. She lands at an Asian club that is all sorts of shady, but it does help her make a good bit of money quickly.
Things that make her plan more difficult is running into her old flame Anthony and then at the club she encounters the man who used to be friends with Wen and is now the adoptive father of her daughter. The other half of the book is narrated by Rebecca, the adoptive mother of Jasmine’s child who they’ve name Fiona. Rebecca is a polished woman who is going through some recently struggles as the editor of the publishing house her father used to run. She finds it hard to juggle all of the responsibilities in her perfect life, but there are no doubts how much she loves Fiona. She just feels at a distance compared to her husband who grew up in China and is fluent in the language.
Though it takes some time to understand what these women have in common, I also felt that the novel was talking a lot about how people struggle to fit in. Especially in a different country. If you don’t look the part, you’ll always be considered a foreigner. Though the book might not end as clean and tidy as people hope, I do think it was an appropriate ending that did still satisfy what each character wanted. This was a surprise novel in how much I enjoyed it by the end, so I might just be giving some of Kwon’s other novels a shot!