Swimming Back To Trout River by Linda Rui Feng

This wonderful book reminds me why I love debut novels. A well-crafted story beautifully written will take you to another place. Swimming Back to Trout River does exactly that.

I have a better picture of Mao’s (1960s-1970s) cultural revolution in China, generational customs and why so many Chinese wanted to come to America. Little Junie will steal your heart, while you try to understand her parents, Momo and Cassia. Their struggles with life in general and their lives together is most of this story.

You will be enchanted by this tale and all of its characters. Five stars from this reviewer as I await more from Linda Rui Feng.

We follow the story of Junie, her parents, and everybody that impacted their lives in one way or another in China and eventually in the US from the 60s until the 80s, going through the Cultural Revolution in China. Through the eyes of Momo and Dawn we follow how the music and art was affected and the ramifications in their lives. Through the eyes of Cassie, we see how a life can be forever altered through the doings of others. These aspects of the book, I loved it. The way the author paints these stories and makes us feel everything is really something. There is a scene in particular that involves Junie's grandpa when he's building something special for her that I really loved.
However, there was a shift in the story when a certain character goes to the US and I felt completely disconnected from the book from this point on. Specially because I really disliked a lot of the decisions from this point and the direction the author took, specially by the end; I felt the author went for an emotional ending and I just wasn't engaged enough by then.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read an ARC of Swimming Back to Trout River in exchange for an honest review.

This is a beautifully written story about a young girl named Junie who lives in China in the 80's. It is also about her family and the many people who have impacted them. I enjoyed getting a glimpse into life in China during the cultural revolution. I'd certainly read about it in history, but not from the perspective of those who experienced it first-year.

Ms. Feng does an excellent job of developing her characters and shedding light on this part of history. She also helps us understand and empathize with her characters. The ending is particularly beautiful and unexpected. This is a book I am grateful to have read!

I could not put this book down. The prose is beautiful, the characters are multi-dimensional, and the setting is riveting. From China's cultural revolution to 1980s America, the story is chock full of history, culture, and family. Each character is presented with all their unique human gifts, foibles and flaws. This author's insight into the human condition is amazing.

Linda Rui Feng's debut novel, SWIMMING BACK TO TROUT RIVER, weaves together tendrils of its characters' lives to create a beautiful, complex but interconnected web of life, death, and 造化—the human and nonhuman transformations of things. Momo crosses the sea post-Cultural Revolution to seek the American Dream and establish a home for his wife and daughter back in China. However, unbidden memories and traumas hold on tightly to these survivors and immigrants; past missed chances with people and things deemed "bourgeois" by the Red Guard surface tantalizingly close in a way that makes you catch your breath. These characters in the book, so devastatingly human and whole and broken, navigate emotional and physical loss and yet find ways to reorient themselves towards healing (and sometimes forgetting).
SWIMMING BACK TO TROUT RIVER is about leaving your roots, but also the ways that 缘分 (fate, destiny) brings you right back to them. Reading this book during this period of my life, locked-down in my childhood home after flying back to be with my mother in her last moments, feels oddly like 缘分, connected in Momo's unfinished aria of grief.
Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review, out May 11, 2021.

This engrossing and beautifully-written novel is set during and after China's Cultural Revolution and interweaves the story of a young girl left to be raised by her grandparents when her parents move to America and the story of her parents lives before she was born. Music, particularly the violin plays an intriguing role.

"Swimming Back to Trout River" is a beautiful novel by Linda Rui Feng about Momo and Cassia's life during China's Cultural Revolution and their immigration to America and their daughter, Junie, who stays behind in a small Chinese village. I loved the characters, the setting in various parts of China and the US, the history, and culture of old and new. My favorite part of this novel though was the clever way that the stories within the story connected. This is among the best novels I read all year.

This is a gem of a book that traces the lives of a few intertwined people and how growing up in China during turbulent times formed them. The book goes from China to the United States and tells the story of how music was affected during the Cultural Revolution. The characters are very human and relatable. And much of it revolved around the small daughter of two of the characters who is left in the care of her grandparents, who may be the smartest characters of the book. It's an excellent read and it is one of those books that will stay with you long after you finish it.

A poignant and profound novel set in China and the U.S. that depicts the intertwining lives of Momo, his daughter, and the two women who affected him deeply. It is also a story about Chinese culture, music, family dynamics, and friendship. This is one of those novels that will transport readers and suck them in until the very end.