Thank you to Doubleday Books and Netgalley for an early digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

This memoir is a solid debut. Wang chronicles her childhood as an undocumented Chinese immigrant in New York after her family’s initial visas expire. Like many before and after them, they come with the hope that America will live up to its Chinese name, “Mei Guo,” meaning “Beautiful Country,” but the years end up being full of harsh difficulties as they grapple with poverty and racism, placing a strain on their relationships with one another. Wang describes the eclectic jobs she and her parents had to make ends meet, her experience acclimating to school without knowing English, and her encounters with various figures ranging from those who were cruel to compassionate. She does it all with such vivid concrete detail that you feel you are right there with her in decades past.

In addition to the transportive description, what makes the narrative so compelling is that Wang powerfully captures her perspective as a child: young Qian is naive and innocent, but as the memoir continues, there is a growing somberness with each memory and each realization as she recognizes the bleak circumstances her family are in. Yet, despite the many heartbreaks she feels, her bright and inquisitive nature remains, as well as her determination to prove the naysayers wrong in her pursuit of learning, in finding what she can truly call her own. It was clear that reading books was one of Qian’s primary solaces, teaching her the language and providing her with escape and I enjoyed the specific references to the books that helped shape her understanding of herself.

I loved how while the book remained chronologically structured, each chapter was a short exploration on one specific theme or realization, almost like a vignette? Many of these chapters feel sort of “complete” on their own and come around full circle by the end.

One can imagine that telling her story must have been so cathartic and challenging for Wang, since these are feelings and anecdotes she was always told she would need to keep secret for so long. Reading her story gave me helpful insight into the experiences that others like her go through in their pursuit of a better life when the odds seem stacked against them.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

Beautiful Country is a memoir written by a Chinese woman brought to the US on a Visa that expires, deeming them illegal.

Qian relives the memories of the poverty and problems they encountered by being illegal. While her parents are highly educated and had successful careers in China, they came to the US due to political pressures. Now, in the US, they are working jobs for the undereducated and barely surviving.

Qian starts school in the US and has limited English. She starts to watch PBS and reading books and her world opens up and educates her.

This book is a heartbreaking memoir of a difficult childhood on a multitude of levels and as you are reading it, you know that there are possibly millions out there with the same issues.

"Beautiful Country" by Qian Julie Wang is a memoir about Wang's move to the United States as a young child and how she navigates childhood and adolescence as impoverished, undocumented immigrant. Wang and her parents endure equal struggles to adapt to a new life in America; a country that they learn doesn't actually want them. Wang's parents fight for her to get equal access to an education, which is one the main things that can provide for her, as their immigration status has reduced them to taking underpaid, dangerous jobs that are seemingly unknown to everyday New Yorkers. As Wang increasingly establishes her independence and adapts to a new life, her mother unravels and relies on her more and more for support that she can not provide. Wang's writing tells this heart-wrenching, yet hopeful story, in a way that draws the reader in for more. I really loved this book.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang is a memoir told through the eyes of a child as her family struggles to survive in America. In China, Qian’s parents were well educated and respected professors. Qian’s parents do not agree with the Chinese political system and wishing for a better life come to America on visitor Visas. Overstaying their Visas, the family remain in America as undocumented Chinese living in constant fear. They remain in the shadows of NYC to avoid being discovered, arrested and deported back to China. Working menial low paying jobs for long hours and little pay, the family is barely able to exist. They live in inadequate housing sharing a bathroom and kitchen with other desperate families. There is little food and “shopping days” are their only means of acquiring clothing and everyday household items. The Wang family’s fears, stresses, struggles and desperation is a story of people trying to find a better world for themselves and their families and the means by which they are willing to go to achieve that life.

Moving story of a young girl brought to the US from China at 5 years old. Her parents, college professors in China, wanted a better life and freedom to think. Her story was an eye opening look at the difficulties that immigrants, especially illegal immigrants face and how hard they work for little benefit. The ultimately happy ending for most characters was welcome, but it also made you think of how many were not as lucky.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love to read and I love to learn and this book took care of both of these things. This book is a great teaching tool for all people. It follows Qian who is just a young girl when she arrives in America. It provides an understanding of exactly what people who immigrate to America go through. The constant struggles in many different areas as well as always being afraid that you will not be allowed to stay here. The experiences of school and "jobs" were very interesting. I do not know what kind of ideas I was harboring as to how immigrants acclimate to America but these were not them. Congratulations to her on a successful life and a great book.

Intriguing and thought provoking. As I read Beautiful Country I was sad as I realized how much this” Beautiful Country has missed by ignoring the gifts immigrants bring to us. The creativity and talent we’ve overlooked. And how much more beautiful and what a better country we would be if we only could see that. This is the authors honest and brave retelling of her childhood. I commend her for a story well told.
We Often see immigration as a political issue. In this story it is a human issue. It Challenges us to do better. We can do so much better. I highly recommend this book.

This review will be posted on August 27, 2021 to: https://instagram.com/amandas.bookshelf

This memoir was so powerful! @qianjuliewang writes with honesty, bravery, and eloquence about her five years in the USA as an undocumented person starting when she was seven. Her child's perspective on the poverty and hardship she and her parents experienced were intermixed with moments of joy, like getting lost in books after she taught herself English or making her first real friend. Wang's memoir serves to remind us - especially those of us privileged enough to not have our legal residency or citizenship questioned - that behind the inflammatory vocal bombs the culture warmongers levy about "the illegals" are real humans. Real people who are marginalized into silence and fear, while also vulnerable to xenophobic attacks, sexual assault, wage theft, malnutrition, poverty, and neverending worry and anxiety. Wang's commanding memoir needs to be read by all to start to understand what it really means to be undocumented. But, above all, she needs to commended for sharing her most painful childhood trauma with the world. Thank you, Qian Julie Wang. #BeautifulCountry Rating: 😊 / really liked it
•
This book is scheduled for publication on September 7, 2021. Thank you @doubledaybooks for providing me this digital ARC via @NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book.

Definitely 5 stars. Probably a top rear for this year.

Such a compelling story. Not just a story of an undocumented immigrant but that of a child. So many vivid details. Heartbreaking at times but a story of true perseverance. Not only to live it but to share it here. It wasn’t so much about her fears of being caught but rather her day to day suffering. From their meager existence. Living in substandard conditions. Working in sweatshops. “Shopping” days in the trash. Barely enough money for food. An illness that nearly kills her mother. So much trauma. But she bears it all. And in the end to see she not only finds the freedom she had sought but achieves the dream of becoming a lawyer where she can now champion for those like her. What a story. What a story to share.

I am grateful to have read it.

I thought this was a very interesting, well written and honest personal account of a Chinese child who grew up as an "illegal alien" (if that term is still used) in New York City. Besides reading about the various challenges that she and her parents encountered in terms of employment, housing and education, we get insight into the psyche of the writer - how her experiences affected her. I was only disappointed that the writer didn't give more details about a life-changing conversation she tells about at the end of the book.

Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang
Doubleday, 2021 (2021)
Hardcover, e-Book
* * * Reviewed by Barbara Lingens

Mei Guo (America in Mandarin) literally translates as 'beautiful country,' and this is the story of how an immigrant Chinese family experiences it. Seven-year-old Qian arrives with her Ma Ma to join Ba Ba, who had left two years earlier. When she sees him again, he looks different. And pretty soon Ma Ma will also look different. In China, Qian's parents were professionals and relatively well off. In New York, because they have no papers, Ma Ma has to work at a sweatshop and Ba Ba at a laundromat.

Qian is pretty precocious, and through her eyes we see how her family lives in their new China - Brooklyn. Their home is on the second floor in a single room next to a bedroom that hosts revolving families of immigrants. All share a bathroom. Dinner might be one slice of pizza for the three of them.

Fear and shaming quickly become part of their lives. Qian is told not to talk to anyone, not to trust anyone, and to stay away from police officers. She and Ma Ma are called chinks, and people pull at the corners of their eyes and make faces at them.

The author does a beautiful job in making us see how bewildering it all is for Qian to try to make sense of the world around her. She is a young girl in a strange and scary new world, with her parents confounded by their inability to master their new surroundings. At the same time she has her own difficulties: her constant hunger, trouble in school and her lack of friends or adults to whom she might turn for help and advice.

Finally though, Ma Ma gets on her feet, and they are on their way. For me, the memoir could have ended with Chapter 30. The next one fast forwards 10 years, and I miss the young Qian's take on her world - she has grown up. Also there is a great deal of information in this last chapter, and it seems a bit confusing. Nevertheless Beautiful Country provides valuable insight into what a young stranger can experience in a world we take for granted because we speak the language and we aren't poor.

Beautiful and engaging story. Cant stop reading it. Really recommend this to everyone about authors experiences as her family left china for a new life.
I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to Doubleday Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4112075798

Beautiful story and sharing of suffering in a country meant to be beautiful for everyone. I’m not sure the book was as connected as it could be - stories aligned with thoughts and perceptions, but definitely full of heart. Wang was and is full of resiliency, which jumps from each page.

A lovely memoir on immigration to the US. I really enjoyed the writing because she was able to capture her voice so well during the age she was going through these things. The word choices and way of explaining things as she understood the world at that time was amazing to read. It felt like you were reading the story in real time growing up with her and her family as they adjusted to such a new way of living for them. I am so grateful to have been able to read and review and ARC of this! Thank you so much NetGalley, Qian Julie Wang and Doubleday for allowing be the opportunity to read this ARC!

A beautifully written book about the authors experiences as she and her parents left china for a “better” life in Mei Guo, which translates to “beautiful Country”, the United States.
With high hopes yet fear of the unknown Qian and her family arrive in their new country, in stages. First the father went over and then later Qian and her mother go to meet him, in 1994, in NYC, she was 7 yrs old at the time..
Leaving your homeland is scary enough but arriving in a country where your hard work is not recognized is very hard. In China both of Qians parents were Professors , but once in the USA and Illegal, they must find what ever work they can, usually sweatshops or some factory to try and make ends meet, quite often hungry and living in horrible shared housing.
But the whole family are go getters and try their hardest to work their way to a better life.
Qian would sometimes help her mother in the sweatshops, but was able to go to
school, where she did well, she was very smart and loved to read and spent a lot of time going to the library where she learned to read in English.
This is a story of resilience, coming up from an invisible person, which Immigrant are quite often, to showing the world who you really are.
The book and story of Qian and her families from their trials and tribulations, to always envisioning a brighter future.
We have to be more aware of what people are going through as Immigrant and always offer a welcome.

Beautiful Country is an engaging personal account of the little-known or poorly understood life of American immigrants. It is exceptionally well written, and its vivid imagery depicts the journey's struggles on so many fronts: personal experience, how it plays out in the family, and the emmense swath of losses, from a sense of self and belonging, generational continuity, nurturing home-life, security, profession, joy, health and dignity. They are replaced with uncertainty of food and shelter, bigotry, intimidation, gut-wrenching impact of pernicious nationalism, injustice, threats and fear. It illuminates the shameful aspects of the America we thought we knew.

The book is about crushing injustice, love, personal resilience and true patriotism. I highly recommend it.

Lovingly written memoir about the Chinese immigrant experience in New York City in the mid 1990s. And excellent choice for your next book club.

I am in love with this awe-inspiring look into the author's childhood. It was raw yet full of heart. The moments of reflection were deep and thought provoking. An emotional read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Doubleday Books and NetGalley, whom I deeply thanks. Opinions are my own.

A haunting book that is beautifully written - so much so that it leaves you feeling unsettled as you read about the traumatic experiences of the author's undocumented immigrant experience. While it is ultimately hopeful, there is a lot to process as you walk away from this.

This memoir was incredible. The story of growing up undocumented was beautifully written. The words melted like butter. I would give this book 100 stars.