This is a book that reads like a memoir, one in which the author works through the issues she has with her identity and her mother's abandonment, as well as how the two are linked. It is 1987 in a Canadian mining town, and we get to know how much Swee Hua was liked by her daughters and how she was the fun parent. Their father was originally a stateless man from Brunei, so the idea of being Canadian is something he championed.
Lily has a sister, and once Swee Hua vanishes from their life, we jump ahead in time to the point where Lily is herself about to be a mother and is conflicted with the emotions she feels about the role.
There is some tough introspection about why Lily wants to make the choices she does for her daughter while her husband wholeheartedly embraces his own culture.
I listened to this entire audiobook while I was pregnant myself, so some things did stick with me. I think I might not have appreciated this book as much in the written form - the voice of the narrator drew me into the plot. The author did a great job of depicting a character so conflicted within herself while professionally being someone that others rely on.
The final reveal does not do much to ease any of the heartaches any of them have gone through, but it does not leave many unanswered questions.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

(Thank you to NetGalley and Bespeak Audio Editions for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest feedback)

In my opinion, this is one of the best books of the last year. It is a book that both rips your heart yet and is also incredibly heart-warming and beautiful.

This book centers around Lily, a new mother reflecting back on her years with her mother, Swee Hua, who abruptly walked out on her husband and daughters when Lily was just 11. Living in Canada, Swee Hua desperately misses home in Brunei, and has never been able to feel she belongs in Canada.

When Lily becomes a mother herself, the pull to finally find out what happened to her mother is too strong to resist. She now desperately needs answers and an explanation to understand.

The narrator, Jennifer Hui, does an amazing job. You can really feel each character's emotions, all the way from joy to despair, truly giving extra depth to everyone.

This book is everything from a multi-generational drama to a mystery novel, a book about the struggles of a mother to be a good parent while fighting her own demons, I even found it very educational as I learned about a culture I knew little about.

I will be in the front of the line to read every single book Jamie Chai Yun Liew ever writes!

The novel offers an incredibly valuable and honest perspective on motherhood, undermining the myth that mothering and nursing has to come to women naturally. It further explores the themes of migration and race, placing particular emphasis on the significance of citizenship and the dire consequences of being born stateless. Despite its very serious themes and narrating some truly tragic events, the book is characterised by a sense of hopefulness, love, warmth and community. It’s a truly touching and heartfelt story, told in the most moving and captivating manner. If you’re still looking for your favourite book of the year, this might just be it.

Read my full review here: https://reytgoodbooks.wordpress.com/2022/10/24/review-of-dandelion-by-jamie-chai-yun-liew/

Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew is an immigrant story about how lost and vulnerable stateless people really are. Beautifully written, this book sheds light on an issue readers don't often get a chance to read about.

From Brunei to cities all over British Columbia the novel introduces us to a young woman who struggles to understand exactly why her mother would abandon her and her sister.. We learn about what life is like as she struggles to understand her identity as a Canadian mom of a mixed race child and an ethnic Chinese daughter of a mother who abandoned her.

I enjoyed this story a lot. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This stole my little fil-am heart. Although the struggles were very different, reading Dandelion brought me back to many moments in a small, predominantly white community where my Filipino mother stood out and was subject to ridicule and being outcast. I too wasn’t left out in those departments.

The moments of shame, embarrassment. Wishing I was “normal”, my mom trying to give us an American experience and never teaching us Tagolog-something we all regret now. Now that I’m old enough to be proud of our heritage.

Dandelion really broke my heart but was so complex. I don’t see anything but racism as the “bad guy” despite the difficult and sometimes questionable decisions some of the characters make.

No matter your background-I think you’ll find something to connect with in this book that reflects many teen/parent situations we have all experienced.

The voice actor, Jennifer Hui, did a tremendous job. I applaud both the author and narrator!

Many thanks to Netgalley, Bespeak Audio Editions and the author, for the ALC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dandelion is a story of a daughter, a story of love, loss, pain, healing, of never giving up, roots, and value of belonging.

The book follows the life of Lily who is the daughter of first generation immigrants from Brunei who moved to Canada as being Chinese descendants in Brunei, they were never granted citizenship.

Lily's mother abandoned her when she was 11 and though deep down she knew why Swee Hua left Canada, she never came to terms with it till she herself was at the precipice of motherhood. The story is narrated from Lily's POV, set in the past and present. We see her as a young girl eager to fit in and as young new mother who is frustrated with her current situation and the unknowns of her life.

As an immigrant myself, I resonated with this story in many different levels. The frustration of being seen as different, yet the need to hold on to that representation, the identity is one of the biggest struggles of moving to a different country to build a new life. We see the different levels of absorbance of culture in different characters through out this book, Lily's dad who completely ingratiated himself into Canadian ways and want to leave everything Chinese, Malay and Bruneian about him, while her mother was clinging on to these same traditions that make up her identity and Lily who is confused and not sure of the extents and limits to which she wants to adapt, learn and adopt.

I adored the narration, especially the way every different person was narrated in their own style with all languages included within the story being brought in perfectly. This book was painful to listen to, it made me cry, smile, laugh, miss my family and also reminded me why my ethnicity and nationality sits in the core of my identity. The best part was I could empathize with every single character, except for Bea. She was spoilt, brash, rude and very insensitive towards her sister.

TW: suicide mention, child abandonment, mental health issues, Post partum depression

Dandelion is a story about roots and where you come from. No matter where you go, you can never fully separate yourself from your motherland.

Dandelion is not your typical immigration story. Lily’s mother left her family when she was just 11. From that moment, Lily has been trying to discover who she is and where she came from and who she is. As she has her own daughter, she begins the journey searching for her lost mother, and finds out who she is.

I learned a lot from this story about immigration from the Chinese perspective and more about the Chinese diaspora. This book brought up a lot for me about the idea of home and where you are from. I think a lot about the idea of place and ancestral homes, especially when it comes to the Black experience. It was a new learning opportunity to see how many different areas of the world Chinese people planted roots and called home.

Being stateless and not having a country to claim was just as bad as being homeless in her parents’ eyes. This brought in a whole new perspective on immigration for me. Yes, this is a story about trying to find a better life in a western country, but it’s also about the nostalgia and connection one has with knowing where they come from.

One aspect of the story I connected to was that feeling of not being cultured enough, but not being white enough to assimilate. Lily was caught between the two worlds of growing up Chinese, but being Canadian. She had a home, and she had status in the country, but being caught in these two worlds still made it difficult.

I would definitely recommend this story, especially for the different perspective on home and immigration.

This novel follows Lilly – daughter of Chinese immigrants in Canada throughout her journey to motherhood after being abandoned by her own mother in childhood. Her father was previously stateless in Brunei and works in the mines in British Columbia with a ‘chip on his shoulder’ about management. Her mother, Swee Hua, misses home and feels completely out of place in Canada, finding it difficult to connect. Their complicated background and characters are really what makes this story compelling, and the way it affects Lilly and her younger sister Bea is a way of showing just how deeply people affect one another.

Every character is flawed, every decision made having more than one perspective to it. Each person has their own baggage and background and seeing all of this play out was incredibly compelling. Themes such as race, culture, customs, identity, statelessness, language, sense of belonging, family relationships and so much more are covered in such a beautiful and moving way in this book, I was truly touched and it made me think quite long and hard about what it means to belong, what home is ... one of those unable to stop listening books.

I read this as an audiobook, narrated by Jennifer Hui. Her narration was quite slow and deliberate, each sentence taking its time. I personally listened on 2x speed because I like to read my stories a bit faster than that, but the pacing of her narration was excellent given the type of story this was.

Trigger warnings: <spoiler>suicide mention, child abandonment, mental health issues</spoiler>

I received a complimentary copy of this novel from Bespeak Audio Editions via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, which I leave voluntarily – this has not affected my review in any way.

Read on audio via @netgalley, an exploration of what it means to be from a place, to belong to a place and how it feels to leave that place. Lily’s mom leaves their family in Canada and returns to Southeast Asia looking for something and leaving no trace behind. As an adult, Lily looks for her, trying to piece together what pulled her mother away from their family.
It is a really interesting story, to contemplate why Swee Hua wasn’t happy in Canada, but it left me wanting more depth. These are heavy ideas, and I think more could have been revealed to us.

This book taught me so much about the immigrant experience for a young family from Brunei, located on Borneo, who moved to Canada. The bigotry that the Asians experienced was horrifying and quite unknown to me prior to listening to this book.
In addition to the monumental change of moving from one country to another, the mother was mentally ill which made the young children confused and bewildered. There weren't a lot of places where these girls felt safe as they grew up.
I enjoyed this book very much and recommend it.
Thank you to Netgalley for letting me listen to this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dandelion
Jamie Chai Yun Liew

Wow. There is so much passion poured into every sentence of this novel. I wish that I could put into word the way I felt while reading Dandelion. It was so real and raw that at times I thought I was reading a biography.

From the representation to the beautiful descriptive tone, it all just made it so defined. The course of the book follows Lily with alternating time periods that have a full view of the events that took place.

Do I recommend this novel a thousand times over I would.

Book 74 of 2022
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Note: Because I "read" the audio version of Dandelion, I do not have a reference to the novel to get all names right, locations, etc.

Lily and Bea are sisters growing up in Sparwood, British Columbia with their parents, who immigrated to Canada from Brunei before they were born. They are ethnically Chinese, which mattered in Brunei where it meant they could not be citizens and opportunities were limited. Their mother, Swee, was born in Malaysia and has citizenship there, but their father was stateless and longed for a place with opportunity where he could achieve citizenship.

Lily, the older daughter is the narrator and she drops one shoe as the novel opens: She is pregnant. Her mother left the family without a trace when she was a child. They never saw nor heard from her again. And then, she transports us to Sparwood, a mining town where her father landed work as a welder in the mines. It is the 1980s and they have a house in a nice, solidly middle class neighborhood. The Asian community is small and close knit. The children are bullied. The adults not accepted by the white community. Their father's sister and her husband live nearby. Their mother is homesick and unhappy. Their Chinese dialect spoken in Brunei is unintelligible to Mandarin and Cantonese speakers, but since Brunei was a British protectorate, Lily's parents speak English. Swee also speaks Mandarin that she learned in school from fellow students.

Along the way, the family casually observes some traditions, At one point, they attend a red egg and ginger party held to welcome a new baby who has reached 100 days of life; cooking and eating food native to their homes. The girls learn some of the Chinese dialect unknown to most of the others in town who did not come from Brunei. They befriend a Chinese man who seeks and fails to get refugee status. He goes into hiding. Swee, increasingly disenchanted with her home, feeling, perhaps, misunderstood or unsupported by her husband walks out when Lily is eleven. Their aunt steps in and helps to raise the girls. Eventually, they leave Sparwood, move to Calgary but, as adults, land in Eastern Canada.

Dandelion is a universal story about motherhood, the early weeks of having a newborn that can overwhelm so many, parents and about the experiences of children, sisters, friends, loss, making sense of one's life, particularly when one has been through trauma. It is overlayed with a mosaic of what it means to be Asian in a largely white diaspora; how Lily chooses to relate to her ancestry and culture that is worn on her face and her skin color, yet seems out of place in her adult world, her job and marriage to her husband who's family emigrated from Ukraine. She still connects to her childhood friend, sees her sister, her father, her aunt, but she is educated, has a profession, is Canadian and her mother is a distant memory. Bea loathes their mother. Lily is conflicted. Their father and aunt have disappeared Swee like she is a ghost. Throughout, Lily's world view is influenced and shaped by her ethnicity and culture, but she would say she knows very little about it. And, with the birth of her child, she desperately wants her mother.

This is such a rich, beautifully written story with some twists and turns that cannot be shared without spoiling things. The characters are beautifully drawn. The relationships are "how did she get into my brain" realistic, touching on feelings and motivations for actions that make sense to the individual and that we, as readers, comprehend because of Liew's gift. The settings are vivid. I will read everything Liew writes. I could see her as a favorite author.

This audio book was so well narrated. I appreciated hearing the pronunciation of Chinese words and names where relevant. The characters were portrayed well.

Dandelion, a debut novel by Jamie Chai Yun Liew, is a book that deeply grabbed my heart on many levels.

Primarily, this is the story of a new mother grappling with the role of motherhood. After being abandoned by her own mother in the 1980's, at the age of 11, Lily is raised in Canada by her father. No one discusses her mother's sudden disappearance and it not only remains a mystery to Lily throughout her life, but also a source of deep pain and trauma. With the birth of her own daughter, Lily becomes obsessed with understanding what happened to Swee Hua.

This book is also about immigration, belonging, family bonds, statelessness, loneliness and the power of a US birth certificate and passport. As a Chinese immigrant growing up in British Columbia, Lily feels disconnected from her heritage. Lily's father is determined to make a life in Canada, rejecting his ethnic identity in order to adapt and become "Canadian." A lifetime of tensions within their family leads to a complex, almost haunted, set of familial relationships.

The writing in this book is lovely, although I did feel that the pace of this book was a bit slow and repetitive at times. However, despite that, I was very engaged and moved by Lily's story.

Jennifer Hui did a fantastic job of narrating the audio version of Dandelion. She was absolutely able to capture the sensory feel of the culture, tradition, and language (and food!) through her reading.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bespeak Audio Editions for the audio book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a slow cooker. It started off a little slow but really picked up the pace at about half way through. I ended up loving it so much! Filled with perspectives about immigration, family ties, abandonment, culture, ethnicity, racism, grief, forgiveness, motherhood, postpartum depression and so much more, this book eloquently took us through the path of Lily as she navigated her way though life while dealing with the abandonment of her mother from the age of 11. Lily and her sister grow up dealing with the pain in very different ways. After Lily has her first child, she feels called to seek out the truth about what really happened to her mother. This story was so rich in family and feelings and culture. I loved it and highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to listen to this audio book in return for an honest review.

Well, this author was completely new to me, and disappointed in absolutely no way. A beautifully written, poignant and heartbreaking book wrapped in family dynamics and the drive to discover one’s identity. I can’t really express just how moving this book was. The narration was lovely too.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advance copy of The Dandelion in exchange for my honest review.

Wow, what a heartfelt and emotional read of resilience, immigration, and where we call "home." Lily is a child growing up in Sparwood, Canada when her mother, Swee Hua, spontaneously disappears and leaves her family behind. When Lily becomes an adult and mother herself, she searches for the mother who had seemed to leave without a trace.

In reading the audiobook, I found the narrator to be exceptional with her character voices. For the book itself, the beautiful sensory descriptions and metaphors provided an elegant prose, which felt unique to the story. The author provided excellent cultural representation which anyone of an ethnic background could either relate or appreciate. It is a sensitive, touching story based around several important considerations to be aware of, and I found the ending to tie everything together.

I'd recommend this to anyone who appreciates literary fiction or memoirs, as it had a biographical feel.

Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew is a great debut novel! I listened to the audiobook narrated by Jennifer Hui and I quite enjoyed it. I loved the Canadian settings of British Columbia and Ottawa and the Chinese Canadian culture. I’m Chinese Canadian so I found many parts in this novel extremely relatable. It was interesting to read about Lily’s thoughts on identity and familial bonds. I really enjoyed how evident the author’s own knowledge is put into this story. I’d definitely be interested to read more from this author.

Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew is a story about immigration, identity, and motherhood. At 11 years old, Lily's mother leaves her family behind to never be heard from again.

Flash forward to Lily as an adult. She's now a mother herself and wants answers, but not one in her family will speak about her mother to her. She then sets on a journey to discover what happened to her mother and define her own identity.

This was beautifully written. The audiobook was superbly narrated.

*Thank you Netgalley for the audio copy*
I can’t believe people aren’t talking about this book. I loved this story so much. I might have been able to relate to it on a different level because of the fact that I’m an immigrant, but I thought it brought to light a little bit of twhat dealing with immigration/visas are really like. - people seem to have a preconceived notion of what immigrants “get” or “choose not to get” when they immigrate somewhere. The reality can be, and more often then not is, very different.
I loved how once she became a mother, the main character was able to understand some of her mothers choices.
Overall, a great book.

Poignant and sad and haunting, Dandelion still somehow leaves you with a sense of peace at the end. A heartbreaking search for her mother, who left when Lily was just eleven, leads us through her internal struggles of why and how, and what actually happened on that day in 1987.

When Lily becomes a mother herself, old wounds come to the surface and she becomes obsessed with knowing where her mother went. How could a mother just leave her children?

An affecting novel that struck me as centrally about motherhood. It changes you. Through additional themes of migration, isolation, mental illness, family, secrets, and cultural differences it ultimately leads you to what really makes us belong.