I loved this book and I particularly love it as an audiobook. Sometimes you’re just in the mood for a good memoir and when you are - this is a great option (and one that seems to have flown under the radar for a lot of people). Loss can be hard to process and this book follows Kat as she processes the loss of her mother and the ways her family responded to that loss. It was hard at times, but always interesting and engaging. Definitely one I’ll recommend!

This was so good but heartbreaking. I was sucked into this memoir and couldn’t put it down. I felt everything that was expressed. Just overall powerful and memorable.

Seeing Ghosts was a heartbreakingly beautiful novel. Read by the author, Kat Chow, the reader was given insight into so many different aspects of a family. From losing a mother at a young age to growing up with immigrant parents, Chow has created a beautiful novel that should be required reading about children of immigrants.

This was really good. I love it when an author narrates their own memoir. This was about grief and I think anyone would be touched by this, even if you grieve in a different way.

I am a sucker for a good cover. This one drew me in hook, line, and sinker 🐟

“Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir” is the story of Kat Chow’s life in relation to her family of origin. More specifically, it is her almost scientific observations of her family, both living and passed on, and how she strives to better understand them. Not a typical memoir, this one features some shocking realizations of her family that may not be simply explained away through the lens of culture that she had assumed for much of her life.

I typically love a book narrated by the author but I felt this one would have benefited from increased emotional expression. I finished wondering if this would have been an even better experience had I read the physical book. Kudos to Kat Chow for sharing the good, the bad, and the questionable in such an unflinching manner. Give this well-written book a try!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook. The opinions in this review are entirely my own.

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I highly recommend the audio if you love listening to authors reading their books as well, especially for the pronunciation of the Chinese words she shares.

It’s taken me forever to write this because this book hit me so freaking hard and I might have to write another still. There’s so much to unpack in this book and I’ve been finding it so hard to put into words just how much this book affected me—it’s also weird to say how much you LOVED and ENJOYED a book about grief and loss, but wow, this one will stick with me forever.

Last night, @katchow_ sat down with @chanel_miller (hulllo, DREAM DUO ANYONE?) to discuss the book and a part that really resonated with me was the pair discussing how Kat described her mother’s goofy & mischievous nature; which is different than how Asian mothers are typically portrayed and this really reminded me of my mom.

If you’ve been here for a while, you know that I’m the kind of person who will cry over a commercial but have only cried in ONE book before (hi Namesake) but, I cried in this one, put it down for a bit, and called my mom (who didn’t answer ASAP and then gave me a cheeky answer I think Kat and her mom would enjoy). I think that speaks volumes at how hauntingly beautiful Kat’s writing is and how deeply connected readers will feel reading her book.

This book might have hit me the way it did as I saw the similarities between Kat’s mother-daughter relationship in my own (the Cantonese words likely played a bit part in that, see comments for a few translations to enhance your reading), but will also truly resonate with anyone. This has been added to my list of fave memoirs.

On that note, there’s a small passage that I’ll end this review on—re: Kat’s dad discussing how he missed his wife taking care of him (i.e., cutting her fruit for dessert, page 294) and it might not mean much to all, but I’m leaving it here because it really got me:

“Almost anyone with a Chinese mother knows this small gesture usually means love.”

This memoir is well-written and I think it would be an impactful reading experience for anyone who has experienced the loss of a parent. Fortunately for me, I have not experienced this kind of grief in my life, but that did make it hard for me to relate to the emotions described here. Because of that, this book just didn't really "connect" for me, though I appreciated the writing and details about Chinese culture.

Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow is an affecting, poetically written memoir about her Chinese American family with a focus on the loss of her mother. The author does a fantastic job vividly illustrating her life and family. We get to know her mother, the center of their family, who passed away suddenly when the author was only 13, and the shadow she left over her daughters and husband. Chow’s father, though he deeply cares for his family, can be very stubborn, particular, and demanding. Despite doing extensive research on her immediate and extended family, Chow ruminates on how much we can’t know due the tendency to not speak of tragedy, feelings, or hard times. We learn about her family’s emigration to the United States from southern China by way of Hong Kong spurred by political turmoil and conflicts. As an adult, she finally realizes the sacrifices her family has made to ensure she and her siblings have a better life. Though, her parents were relatively successful living in Hartford, Connecticut, some bad decisions were made by her father, causing financial instability. This, along with medical neglect, may have contributed to her mother’s sudden death from undiagnosed Stage 4 cancer. Seeing Ghosts is a mesmerizing memoir in which Chow depicts her grief and life clearly and profoundly.

Thank you Hachette Audio and NetGalley for providing this ARC.

Part grief memoir, part family history, this was a really good account from a Chinese American daughter coming to terms with her mother's death and her relationship with her father afterwards. I really enjoyed the family history parts of the story, learning about her father's family and their experience leaving China and making their way to America. Lots of relatable moments for anyone who has lost a parent at a young age, going through therapy and then later having to deal with caring for an aging parent.

I did find parts of this dragged a bit but overall I really enjoyed it and if you're curious about the cover, Kat's parent's were into fish taxidermy - definitely a hobby I was not familiar with! Recommended for fans of Crying in H Mart. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my ALC. This was an enjoyable listen on audio read by the author.

I thought this was an okay read. I typically love memoirs like this, specifically ones that focus on family and reflect on familial relationships and their histories. My issue with Seeing Ghosts, however, is that it really lacked narrative cohesion. For me, structure to a memoir is imperative. If a memoir doesn't feel like it's well-structured, then it just comes across as a scattered collection of thoughts and reflections, rather than something with a narrative that's going to keep you reading. Unfortunately, I didn't get a sense of narrative cohesion from Seeing Ghosts at all. It felt like the author flitted from one reflection to the next, which left me wondering how I was supposed to tie events together or make meaning of them. The chapters were also quite short, which made them feel even more disjointed. Thought I personally didn't enjoy this book, I can definitely see why others would like it, though.

This is Kat Chow’s memoir contemplating her family’s story and history against the backdrop of her mother’s unexpected death from cancer. Kat’s grief leads her to explore questions, like how grief affects and shapes a family, and topics like race, wealth, class, gender, & culture.

This was a very moving book. I listened to the audiobook read by Chow and listening to her recount her experience of her mother’s death and everything that follows from it was heartbreaking, and makes the reader confront their own perceptions of death.

If you’re looking for a good audiobook I’d recommend this one. It was easy to listen to and follow. For the most part, Chow is chronological in her memoir and all her stories make sense in how they flow together—overall an easy to follow listening experience. I also really enjoyed hearing Chow’s emotions come through her narration.

Chow uses a lot of Cantonese phrases, so it was also helpful to hear Chow say these words. As this is a memoir, Chow discusses her heritage and her upbringing as the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Hearing Chow tell her family’s story is very memorable because the reader can see the effort Chow, her father, and her sisters went through to discover it. The reader also is able to see the noticeable impact this reconnection to family history has on her father as the book progresses.

Overall this is definitely worth a listen and one you won’t soon forget.

This book reminds me of Crying in H Mart. Chow discusses the difficulties she has with her father after the death of her mother. I liked the audiobook but the author's non-linear structure was confusing at times.

This contemplative memoir explores the author's grief over losing her mother during adolescence. We get many snapshots exploring how this loss has shaped Chow's life on various levels ever since, and how both the absence of her mother and the constant thoughts of her affect the way she sees her world and her life. This book also examines the other familial relationships in her life, especially her relationship with her father, even delving into the resentment one can feel toward the surviving parent. Seeing Ghosts also puts a spotlight on what it's like to be Chinese American, navigating that in-between and finding what parts of the culture of one's family still resonate. This was a great read that I would recommend to anyone interested in memoirs that highlight death/grief and family.

Memoirs often are extremely personal affairs so I feel a little bad for finding Seeing Ghosts to be a real snooze fest. Perhaps, recently I've read too many other works (both fiction, such as The Goldfinch. Ghost Forest, Sunset, Writers & Lovers, and nonfiction, such as Crying in H Mart) exploring grief and death of a loved one. Chow's voice didn't reel me in and I found the narrative somewhat scattered (while I understand that memoirs are not story/plot driven like books are I still think that this particular autobiography could have benefitted from a lil more cohesiveness).