An interesting beginning of the story introduces us to the reason behind the book’s title — Beautiful Country. It hinges the readers into the curious choice and metaphorical reasoning hidden behind the shadows of the story and perpetuates to a dragging motion of intrigue towards reading the story.

What makes this book shine is the author’s courageous show of vulnerability. She told her life’s traumatic story and began in the earliest of her childhood.

Her writing style truly encapsulated the youthfulness of the narrative. It gave a feeling of innocence and complete disconnection to adult knowledge. This brilliant use of narrative really propelled the effectivity of the story to connect with its reader.

It is also interesting to note how Wang‘s writing has a certain poetic allure to it. She did not lie when her younger self claimed herself good with writing. Her use of words flow so naturally as if they are water, and her a well full of them

Marvelous in its show of the struggles of undocumented immigrants, Qian Julie Wang‘s memoir truly gave breath to a world not so visible to the eye. Her story is one to illuminate the world.

Amazing book about the life of an undocumented immigrant in the US and how small and insignificant that can make a person feel. The writing is so compelling - she tells the story from her childhood perspective while still allowing for an adult understanding - the 'character' says one thing, but the reader infers the bigger, often painful, picture. All the while she is growing up undocumented, there is an underlying notion of hope that is beautifully portrayed throughout. Wonderful, important story and so well told.

Please read this book. It’s brilliant, hearbreaking, heartfilled , horrific and hopeful. I’m reading it again. It’s that good.

I’m quite picky when it comes to memoirs and tend to gravitate towards those where I am able to either relate to the experiences of the author or connect with them in some way. While there are a plethora of memoirs out there, the reality is that very few of those memoirs are actually written from the perspective of someone who shares a similar background as myself — namely, a Chinese-American woman from an immigrant family who has struggled with identity and belonging her entire life. This is why, when I found out about Qian Julie Wang’s memoir Beautiful Country , I knew I absolutely had to pick this one up. This powerful memoir is exactly one of those rare gems that most closely encapsulates the immigrant experience that I grew up with. Though there are obvious differences between our circumstances in terms of how are families came to America (the titular “beautiful country” as directly translated from Chinese) — for example, my family immigrated here legally while Wang’s family ended up here illegally due to an expired visa — many of the struggles that Wang recounts from her childhood are ones that I’ve also experienced.

Wang tells her story starting from the perspective of her seven-year-old self, when she is told to put her most prized possessions into her grandparents’ storage unit in China so she could accompany her mother on a “flying machine” (literal translation of 飛機 or “airplane”) that eventually lands in a place called “beautiful country” (literal translation of 美國 or “America”). From the moment Wang and her mother step off the plane at JFK airport (New York) and are reunited with her father (who had gone to America two years earlier), her life is forever changed in ways that eventually shape who she becomes in adulthood. Though she didn’t know it at the time, leaving China for America meant that Wang would go from an environment where she was surrounded by extended family, unconditional love, and every comfort possible, to one where loneliness was a constant companion, familial love came with strings attached, and every day was a fight for survival at all levels (physically, mentally, emotionally). We witness Wang’s coming of age through the wide-eyed lens of a child forced to navigate a world she does not understand and where she was taught to put her head down, do as she was told, and endure whatever was thrown her way without complaint because that was the expectation of someone in her situation.

While in China, Wang’s parents were highly educated professionals, in America they were reduced to working in sweatshops and other low-paying jobs that allowed them to remain in the shadows, with the constant fear of their illegal status being discovered hanging over them. The stress of their new life in a foreign country where, despite their efforts to remain invisible, they are still largely unwelcomed, takes a toll on Wang’s parents and eventually leads to the fracturing of their family. Illegal status aside though, Wang’s struggles growing up as an immigrant child resonated deeply with me — from the humiliation of a tenuous living situation where there was little to no privacy, to not being able to afford the most basic of comforts that seemed to come easily to everyone else (ie: enough food for the table, a roof over our heads, clean clothes to wear to school); to being constantly told that, no matter how hard you work to fit in or how much you contribute to your community, you will never truly belong; to the bullying and racism, both subtle and direct, that becomes an inevitable part of the immigrant experience. For me, this book was difficult to read — not because of challenging subject matter or anything like that — but because of the familiarity of Wang’s experiences and the memories they brought back of my own childhood. One experience in particular had me near tears when I read it: the scene where, in fifth grade, Wang is summoned to her (white male) teacher’s desk one day and, shown an essay she had written and submitted, is essentially accused of plagiarism because the essay was “too well written” and the English was “too good” to have been written by her. Even though she told her teacher that she truly did write the essay and didn’t plagiarize, her status meant that she was not to be believed, so after that incident, Wang would deliberately include spelling and grammatical errors in all her essays to avoid having to endure a similar confrontation with her teacher in the future. This scene resonated with me in particular because this was a common experience for me throughout my entire elementary and middle school education: being told that something I wrote couldn’t possibly have been written by me because the English was “too good” and that I must have copied it from elsewhere. As a result, I also started deliberately including “errors” in my writing to avoid confrontation. Luckily, I later attended a high school and college that embraced diversity and eventually recognized my efforts (though the shaken confidence in how I view my writing is something that I still carry with me to this day).

This was truly a profound and emotional read for me, one that I know will stay with me for a long time to come. Even though reading this memoir brought back some unhappy memories for me, I appreciate the fact that a book like this one exists. While I am buoyed by the knowledge that our country has come a long way in terms of racial diversity and acceptance, at the same time, I am saddened by the obvious steps backwards that we as a society have also taken in this area, over the past few years especially. Now more than ever, we need books like this one that can hopefully help open people’s eyes to the plight that so many in our society experience — a timely read that I absolutely recommend!

Heartbreaking and raw, but also so important to read and know the story of Qian and so many others like her. Her memory of detail and honest writing really made you feel like you were there alongside her. She captured so well the agonizing choices that parents make when they want a better life for their families, and the difficulties they face once they are here. Sad and hard, but so good too.

I started this book unknowing what it was about. I kept seeing the recommendations and found its cover colorful and intriguing.
As the story developed, I found myself totally immersed and touched by this very young girl's life story. Imagine being transported into a different 'world', where everything is new, different, scary at times or just amazing, and yet having the resilience to adapt, keep a sense of gratefulness for what you have, work hard and all the while feel like you are carrying adults' responsibilities. What a lesson this book is!
I do hope Qian Julie Wang will consider writing about her young adult years as well. In the meantime, I very highly recommend 'Beautiful Country'!

(Read thanks to NetGalley)

This book was beautifully written and organized. It’s a memoir, but I’m not sure I’ve ever read a memoir that flows so well and feels so like a novel. I don’t love nonfiction because it feels so boring to me, but that was absolutely not the case with Beautiful Country. This book was so fantastic and lovely, but simultaneously full of heartbreak.
For anyone who doesn’t understand their privilege as a born citizen of a country, specifically the US, this is a must-read.


If Qian Julie Wang started writing novels, I’d pick those up in a heartbeat.

In this memoir, Qian Julie Wang describes her life. As a seven year old child, she moved from China to New York in 1994. Everything is a big change for her and her parents. First of all; in China, her parents where professors, in America they have to start all over again in poverty, and have to make ends meet as sweathshop workers. In China, Mei Guo is the translation for America, literally it means ''The Beautiful Country''. But that is not exactly what Qian experiences, she is mostly experiencing hunger and malnutrion, racism, harrassment. She feels completely out of place in her majorly white schools. Luckily she finds her place of peace in reading and the library. Her parents marriage also is suffering from all the pressure on the family to survive. They are undocumented, and there is the constant fear to be asked for their papers, and to be deported back to China. This is also the fear when her mother lands in hospital just before they move to Canada. Qian never gives up though and is truly a brave fighther of all the difficulties she faces, and that leads her to a job as a job as a lawyer, in where she also tries to find a place of the skinny young little girl that she still feels inside her.

I absolutely was blown away by this book. I love memoirs like this because they are just so real, realer than this isn't possible. Recently I have read House of Sticks by Ly Tran, and this book somehow reminded me of that book, as the story of Qian and Ly are quite the same, the only difference they come from Vietnam and China, but their struggle from Asia to New York are quite the same. And for both authors I have the same deep respect. Their struggles are quite harsh (and as I experienced also some hardships I can relate to this story). The book is beautifully written and very gripping and moving.
This is truly one of the best and real books of this year, don't miss it!!

A memoir that details the unspeakable everyday traumas of growing up poor and undocumented in NYC.

Qian Julie Wang speaks of her childhood from the distance of citizenship, therapy, and exceptional success, embracing her little girl self (and her parents) with strong empathy that comes forth in her brutally honest and emotionally aware prose.

As with many great memoirs, the writing style is of someone whose first career is not literary based. The beginning of the book felt a little like reading a flowery college essay, but by the middle I either got used to the writing or Wang found her rhythm.

Either way, the substance of Beautiful Country is in the story not the style. I anticipate this one becoming a must read within the American canon.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC digital copy. I have not been compensated for my opinion and this is an honest review.

Unfortunately, I was unable to finish reading this ARC digital copy before needing to switch to other books that were being archived. The book remains on my Goodreads "want to read" list, and I will update my review to reflect an updated opinion when I finish it at a later date.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang was moving, heart wrenching and powerful. I was so moved by the courageous acts and resourcefulness of Qian at such a young age. It also made me so angry to learn about her early life as the daughter of undocumented immigrants. It was so disturbing to learn and discover the poverty Qian and her parents were forced to live in. Although both of Qian’s parents were well educated and held professional positions in China, their prior status was immediately erased as soon as they were granted entrance to the United States. It seems like there should be mentors or programs for undocumented immigrants with advanced educational degrees and/or professional training to be able to learn how to become contributing citizens with a chance to contribute to a country they longed to live in. I am in awe of how Qian Julie Wang and her mother was able to turn their lives around despite the opposition they faced. All they ever yearned for was understanding and empathy. Beautiful Country was most definitely eye opening. I recommend this book highly.

Thank you to Random House Publishing for allowing me to read Beautiful Country through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

In Beautiful Country, Qian Julie Wang recounts her childhood in NYC, where she and her parents had immigrated from China. She and her family had arrived on tourist visas that soon expired, so they were forced to take whatever menial work was available without papers. This is a tale of deprivation, struggle, and trauma, but the author's voice comes through as strong and resilient.

Wang's memoir gives a frank account of the misery of a childhood spent in poverty, as an outsider, and in constant fear of being deported. It's incredibly interesting and moving.

The majority of this novel is about Qian Julie Wang’s childhood from age 7 through 6th grade. There is some background on the family at the beginning and then author’s notes at the end to complete the story.

I have read a lot of books about immigrants but each one is unique. Many immigrants have come from impoverished countries, having always been poor and are looking for a better life in the United States.

Ms. Wang however, grew up in a childhood that was filled with love, friends, her own room and toys to play with. Her mother was a math professor and her father an English professor. Things were changing for them. Where once they were a thriving family with a good income and a nice home, they were now being watched constantly. Her father “did not like that they were told what to say, and that they could not answer when students asked about something called the Cultural Revolution”. They decided he would come to “Mei Guo”, the beautiful country and would then send for his wife and daughter.

Ba Ba had not warned Ma Ma or Qian about the conditions he was living in. Where once they were professors, now they were working menial jobs under terrible conditions. They shared a tiny apartment that was dirty, with very little to call their own.

Qian quickly learned that they were “different” than other people here, even those that looked like her. They spoke a different language and their food was different. She was told to always say that she was born here, for fear of deportation as they were undocumented immigrants.

In many ways her story is that of so many other immigrants. Qian and her parents never gave up hope and Qian was determined to go to college and beyond.

As I read the memoir I did feel emotional. No one should have to live a life of poverty, little food and terrible living conditions.

Yet in spite of all of these hardships, the author still chose to return to the US for law school and continues to call New York home. She also credits the city library for allowing her to immerse herself in the language and even the culture of the US.

I received an ARC of this memoir from the publisher through NetGalley.

A memoir of a young, undocumented Chinese immigrant in New York., this really held my attention. This book is told by Qian Julie Wang and starts when she is a small child in China and eventually moves to America with her mother and father. We go through her journey of working in a sweatshop with her mother, the hunger she deals with, medical issues with her mother and her years in school as the poor immigrant child (who didn't know English at first and struggled to even understand).

My heart hurt so much for her! I had moments of sadness, pain, happiness, back to sad. What a rollercoaster. And what a way for me to realize how lucky I was to have 3 hot meals as a child.

My only issue with this memoir is the fact that almost the entire book spanned over just one year of her life. She focused so much of the book on this one year and it wasn't until the end where we learned what happened once she grew up. I would have enjoyed learning more of her life through high school. college and as an adult.I would have liked to see more of her life once she moved to Canada with her mom.

It was still a great memoir and I enjoyed reading about her life, albeit very sad! I was glad to see how happy and good it turned out in the end.

Qian and her family come to America and stay illegally. Because of this illegal status they are only able to get low-paying, gruelling work. Her mother and father fight often, they are exhausted, and she is treated unkindly because of how she talks and looks. This is an intimate look at what it was like for her growing up in a hidden community. But we only get to see 5 years of her life in this book. I ended it feeling like it was a cliff-hanger. Where's the rest of the story? I guess for me a memoir should be more than 5 years long. She has lived so much more of her life and I would have liked to know what the looked like, other than the glossing-over we got at the end. I felt very disconnected from her throughout but did appreciate that little glimpse into her young life.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Beautiful Country, a memoir penned by Qian Julie Wang, tells the story of Qian’s childhood and her experiences as a part of an undocumented family in New York City. We begin the story in China before Qian’s father moves to America, or Mei Guo, which translates directly to the titular beautiful country. We follow Qian and her mother on their journey from China to America to meet with her father in New York. From there. the Wang family copes with the fear of deportation, the stress of working extremely long hours in sweatshops, and attempts to find the elusive American Dream. Wang’s storytelling is gorgeous, and her way of transporting the reader to experience the viewpoint of a child through her writing is incredible. Beautiful Country is one of the best memoirs I have ever read, and definitely one of my favorite books of the year. I highly recommend this memoir.
*Note: I received this book as an E-ARC to review from the published and NetGalley.

Overall, this is a fantastic memoir. I can't think of any other memoir that I've encountered where the author shares such a vulnerable part of her life - being a young, undocumented Chinese immigrant in New York.

Wang truly showed all of her vulnerabilities that a young child can have. Insecurities in learning a new language while trying to adapt to an entirely different way of life is something that most of us cannot relate to.

This story will stay with me for awhile as I regularly find that stories that about survival, upheaval, and endurance are ones that I find myself thinking about constantly and will usually recommend to everyone.

I would've given this five stars if the pacing would've been a little more consistent. While I understand that Wang was writing this from the perspective of her child self and children that age do not have consistent pacing, tighter pacing would've cleaned it up just a bit more.

I think it is worth mentioning because I've seen many other reviews complaining about it - that this is a memoir, not an autobiography. A memoir covers a chunk of time in someone's life while an autobiography usually covers a person's entire life.

From my blog: Always With a Book

Even though I had a print copy, I knew that I was going to be listening to this one as soon as I saw that the author herself was narrating it. I often find that when an author narrates their memoir, it is such a powerful experience and that was so true here.

Qian Julie Wang moved to “Mei Guo” (‘Beautiful Country’ in Mandarin – the name her family gave America) when she was seven. She recalls their experience, with a child’s frankness and naivety, which is really what makes this book stand out. She watches her parents, who in China were educated and highly regarded, take menial jobs in America because they were undocumented just to make ends meet. And we see her struggle internally in trying to understand where the beauty is in this new country.

As hard as it was to see the struggles that Qian and her family go through, I also loved seeing her persevere. She teaches herself English by watching TV, she realizes that the library can be safe place with free books! And she makes the most out of her education, not worrying about what anyone else thinks.

I was so moved by this book. It reminded me of the work I used to do with immigrants when I volunteered as a literacy tutor. How many of the students I had met that were well regarded and highly educated in their home countries and now were working minimum wage jobs if they had jobs at all because they had to move or wanted to move and needed to start all over again.

This book is a powerful read that really broke my heart. I had so many reactions to it and to me, those are the best types of reads because I know those are the ones that really stick with me.

In this beautifully written memoir, Qian Julie Wang looks back on her childhood through 6th grade years, from her early life in China, to coming to America where her family overstayed their visa and therefore were undocumented immigrants, living in fear of deportation and struggling to survive financially as well. She really hits you emotionally with a child’s eye view of what it is like to be an immigrant, to not speak the language, to have no money, to be in constant fear of deportation, to try to find your place in the world.

I do wish we had heard more about how she ended up the success she is today beyond one last chapter quickly summing up the rest of her life to date, but I understand that she wanted to focus on her early years.

This was a Read With Jenna pick and definitely would make a good book club book; I think it also would be a great book for middle school or high school English teachers to assign.

Qian Julie Wang tells her story, devastating yet ultimately triumphant, bravely and with no holds barred. The plight of undocumented immigrants in America and the underground networks that both support and exploit them is something she and her family have experienced on their journey in Mei Guo (the titular optimistic nickname for the USA) from their home in China. In China, her mother was a respected computer science professor who published scholarly works and texts, and her father was also a gifted professor. Persecuted by memories of the unjust treatment his family received during the Cultural Revolution, he decided to emigrate to New York, followed by Qian and her mother. As undocumented immigrants, without other family or friends from home, life was filled with poverty and hardship. Qian’s story is eye opening and shocking; the degradation and suffering they endured in modern American times a wake up call. The thought of fear of deportation preventing children and adults from getting food, medical care and education, was something I had shamefully never considered. This is a book that should be on every school curriculum & college reading list. Wang keeps things upbeat, with her wry humor, unstoppable nature and her true appreciation for all the things she had, rather than what she lacked. I really enjoyed the parts about her friendships and her descriptions of the people in her life. She is truly an inspiration and a wonderful writer, her incendiary prose searing into the reader’s heart. I eagerly await her future works!