Synopsis:
AIPEI STORY is the electrifying new novel by bestselling literary phenomenon Rebecca F. Kuang, a profoundly moving coming-of-age story that explores first love, second language and final goodbyes – all set against the backdrop of one unforgettable summer in Taipei.
First love. Second language. Final goodbyes.
Yale student Lily Chen arrives in Taipei hungry: for family, for culture, for connection.
But her summer of discovery quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate unbearable, and a reckless, deeply awkward trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon ignites vicious gossip.
Then her grandfather dies.
Grieving and adrift, Lily must confront her own questions about the culture she inherited but never fully understood. She embarks on a wryly funny, often devastating search for understanding: of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.
All over one unforgettable summer in Taipei.
Review:
R. F. Kuang is truly testing and exploring different genres.
Lily is attending an intensive Summer school in Taiwan – a country she has never visited to learn a language she has long forgotten. The language of her parents which she had an infant’s knowledge of.
The story is a coming-of-age journey to supposedly reconnect with her culture. It’s about culture shock and the shame at failing at your heritage, at being corrupted by being too Americanised, or, on the other side, too other.
As someone who is a second-generation immigrant, whose entire family (outside my parents and siblings) live on another continent, as someone who also has the speaking capabilities of a seven year in what was my first language; I related to a lot of this.
I think this book will hit hard for a very niche audience. For others, it might seem like an indulgence, a mundane thought-experiment.
I knew how to handle a penis. Thoughts of milking a cow rose unbidden to my mind, but once the image was there I couldn’t get rid of it. Yes, this was what I would have to do—milk him dry, and then I could go to sleep.
Like Yellowface, the protagonist isn’t overly likeable and the cast isn’t that fleshed out. This is a very internal novel following a thought pattern that will either be intimately, uncomfortably relatable, or insightful but not impactful.
To address the critiques I’ve read about this being a pro-Israel book. Unless I had a totally different arc copy to those popular BookTokers or BookTubers, I vehemently disagree.
There is a concert featuring a pianist from Israel on two pages. That’s it.
I don’t think we should be propagating hate generically for a whole nation of people just because of the actions of the state and wider movement.
The ending of the novel felt unpolished and lacklustre. I had to check it truly was the end as it felt like it ended in the middle of a chapter, let alone the ending to a book.
Probably my least favourite by Kuang so far, but still good.
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