Sparks fly and lives change drastically when Lily and Matthew meet and fall in love in Real Americans by Rachel Khong. What starts off as a love story on the brink of Y2K becomes a sweeping saga, involving three different lives all intersected with one another during different time periods. As different as Lily and Matthew are, they're drawn to each other. Years later, you meet their teenage son Nick and wonder what happened to divide the star-crossed lovers and why Nick embarks on a quest to find his father.

This book took me by surprise. It sounded intriguing in Nick's search for his father and why his parents parted, but it goes much further than this simpler plot. There are secrets to uncover and life-changing scenarios that irrevocably change the dynamics of families that once seemed unbreakable. Some events arise that will cause you to pause and reflect on what's happening.

I felt that the emotions of the characters were so well-rendered. You understand why they make the choices they make but also cannot understand why they couldn't take an opposite path. In fact, you may deeply wonder what could have happened if they switched gears and opted for the alternative. Three different characters lay out the events that took place years before Lily and Matthew meet. Some of which could seem implausible but makes so much sense when you read the story. I like how you receive wildly diverse perspectives to fully understand the meat of the book.

While some aspects of the novel may feel like science fiction and/or magical thinking, that's not what the book is about, and it shouldn't dissuade you from reading this book. It's more of a family drama but done in such a unique way. You can fully believe all of these events could happen, so you get carried along as you read every page.

The ending totally satisfied me with being a very simple yet profound close to the book. I liked this book enough that I really want to read the author's previous novel. The characters resonated with me despite the fact that most of the events do not reflect my own life. Each character receives enough attention that you understand them while not exactly agreeing with the choices they make. So many of the parts of the novel will make you think and feel and wonder, and I really loved it.

Goodreads Choice Awards Opening Round - Readers' Favorite Fiction

Lily

I'll be honest. I didn't think I was going to like this. I'm still not entirely sure I do, but it gave me a lot to think about. I wouldn't say this part was my least favorite, but Lily wasn't my favorite.

By now, you know the r/WMAF discourse. There are obviously pros and cons to dating outside your race, but when the balance of power is this unequal, I don't think you can truly thrive.

Matthew is supposed to be easygoing and easy to love. I don't see it. I had a feeling this was going where I thought it was going. His family, while not outwardly terrible, is terrible. It's not shocking, and it's not supposed to be.

Nick

I clearly didn't read the premise or anything, because I was shocked when POVs changed. This, surprisingly, was my favorite part. Poor little secretly rich boy has issues.

Nick is Lily and Matthew's son. He looks exactly like Matthew. I know genetics are weird, and this is actually explained later, but as a white passing multiracial person, he feels invalidated by this, and many other things.

A loner, his one friend is Timothy, who is a bit of a sad boy himself. By this point, Lily and Matthew have divorced. Nick has no contact with his father, and doesn't even know his name. Timothy suggests buying a DNA kit. All goes well. Just kidding.

May

I truly thought I would love May's story best. I felt a bit disconnected from her, even more so than with Lily, which shocked me. The choices she had to make in Communist China are obviously not her fault. She did the best with what she had at the time.

By the time she and Charles make it to the US, I felt a modicum of sympathy, but some things still felt unexplained and misinterpreted.

Not sure I enjoyed the wrap-up, but as a character-based novel, this shines. There are plenty of books I love where I hate nearly all of the characters, and I think this will have to be included. What is life, if not people with inherent flaws?

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf

This book was interesting to me. While I generally love a good multigenerational saga, there was just something about this one that didn’t do it for me. I really loved the first section, with the focus on Matthew and Lily, this section ends with the promise of revelations to come, that I don’t think we’re ever delivered. I found myself confused at where the story was headed for a large part of it, and wanted the focus to be on a smaller theme rather that the many that it actually attempted. I felt as though the writing kept the reader at a distance so I never felt truly invested in the characters. All that said, I think there was still something really promising with the book that will land better for other readers.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I got so absorbed in this story, I couldn't put it down. The writing was clear and compelling, and once the character perspective shifted I was hooked. Overall, it was a really beautiful story of how a family evolves over time.

Rachel Khong's Real Americans is a character driven novel centered around the lives of three generations of Chinese Americans. It's well written and I was immediately invested in the stories of the characters. One of my top reads of 2024!

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of Real Americans by Rachel Khong!

What I appreciated about this book was it's ability to subvert expectations. As the story unfolded, I would have a guess in my mind as to where it was going, where the end of the story would lie but then as I got to that "end", I would see that there's still much left in the books. It is a book that one wants to keep reading to find out what happens to these characters and their lives.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

This book is a beautiful story of three generations of Chinese Americans and how their lives weave and diverge. I had no idea what to expect with this one but really loved it for its simplicity.

The story is told in three parts. First is Lily who falls in love with wealthy Matthew, even though they are radically different. They have a son, Nick, whose story is second. The third, I’ll leave a mystery to avoid spoilers.

I loved all three parts and found them all honest and moving. Lily’s need to be seen and heard resonates with me. Nick’s story is one of searching for himself, and finding his place in the world, which many will relate to. And the third story really ties them all together.

This beautifully written book is one to read. Loved it.

I found part one of this book to be enthralling. Part two did not work for me—I found it to drag a lot. Part three was better than part two, but not as good as part one. Part two lost all of Part one’s momentum. I’m glad I finished the book, but I wish the pacing had been tighter.

Thank you so much for providing me with a copy to read and review

[3.5 stars rounded up]. So much of this was exceptional - the writing, the ambiance, the way it was woven together. Where it fell a bit flat for me was character development, a deficiency of deeper emotions, and irregularities with pacing. It resulted in a disconnected feeling and a lack of investment. I would still recommend, but it’s not the all-consuming, deep-dive I was expecting.

Real Americans by Rachel Khong part one finds us in NYC just before 2000 and we meet Lily Chen. Part two focuses on Lily’s son, Nick, years later in a small island town in Washington State. Part three opens a window into May , Nick’s grandmother and Lily’s mother. Each generation’s actions affects the next and the reader gets to ponder what makes a “real American,” how our choices impact others, and what it means to be family.   

This book appeals to the side of me that loves in-depth world building and complicated characters. Each of the main characters make decisions that most would consider selfish. What I loved about this book is we get to see the motivations behind them. Some were understandable, others were not but they all resulted in a thought-provoking and interesting read. I say this about every book that I enjoy but I would love to see this as a movie.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the opportunity to read. All opinions are my own. 

4.75 out of 5 stars.

I loved everything about this book! Took me a while to finish it, but I loved it. Well written, well done with plot and character.

I recently had the opportunity to read "Real Americans" by Rachel Khong, thanks to an advanced copy from NetGalley. This was my first time reading Khong's work, and I found it to be a mixed experience. "Real Americans" is a multi-generational narrative that spans continents and decades, focusing on the Chen family. The story is divided into three sections, each narrated by a different family member. The first section follows Lily Chen, a young woman navigating life in New York City as an unpaid intern who falls in love with Matthew, the heir to a pharmaceutical empire. The second section is narrated by her son, Nick, who grows up on a remote island and searches for his biological father. The final section is told by Lily's mother, May, and delves into her experiences during Mao's Cultural Revolution and her immigration to the United States. Rachel Khong's writing is undeniably engaging, and she has a talent for creating vivid, relatable characters. The themes of identity, class, and family dynamics are explored with depth and sensitivity. However, I found the narrative structure a bit disjointed at times, which made it challenging to stay fully immersed in the story. The transitions between the different narrators and timelines could have been smoother. While the book offers a compelling look at the immigrant experience and the complexities of family relationships, it sometimes felt like it was trying to tackle too many themes at once. This occasionally diluted the impact of the individual stories. Despite these issues, "Real Americans" is a thought-provoking read that raises important questions about heritage, belonging, and the ethics of genetic research.
Overall, I appreciated the book's ambition and the rich, multi-layered narrative, but it didn't quite come together as seamlessly as I had hoped. #netgalley #realamericans

Real Americans is a novel segmented into three parts, each following a different character/generation (from one family). I didn't mind this structure, but I was surprised to find that both first and second parts were focused on coming of age. The novel is exploring questions of identity; these of course are complicated when someone is young and beginning to understand themselves as an adult at all.

Still, I enjoy Rachel Khong's writing, I was able to find my sea legs in the narrative, and I cared about what happened to these characters. But the third part was a standout, which made the first two parts feel weaker in comparison.

I also felt that Khong introduced many topics/themes but gave them short shrift. I'd have preferred she touch on fewer thorny issues, with greater care.

Overall, I liked it, and I'll be interested in whatever she writes next. (Forgive me for hoping it's more like Goodbye, Vitamin than Real Americans!)

Real Americans by Rachel Khong. Pub Date: April 30, 2024. Rating: 3 stars. If you are a character driven novel reader, this book would probably be for you. It centers around family drama, immigration, finding love, Chinese culture and familial expectations. A lot of subject matter was attempted to be covered in this novel and I felt it made the pacing slower. I think this is an important read, but was not as riveting as I wanted it to be. I think it could have been edited to be shorter as well. I think having three separate experiences of family members in the novel made it a little choppy. I enjoyed Mei's tale the most. Thanks to #netgalley and #knopf for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book was gorgeous, moving and a huge discussion starter at our book club. Told in three parts, through three different generations of the same family this historical epoch will live with me a long time.

This was a very interesting book because it had a lot of different ideas in it. It's a love story but also has hidden meanings behind it. It starts out with l with l. ILYS Ch.E. N. Working at a media company as an intern. She reads matthew who falls in love with her. It's a very Rocky start. Things do not go well. They had a son named nick. She left and went to washington state and lived on an island with him. He wanted to know more about his father so he started to investigate. He finally meets his father.And this is when the story really took off. Her parents had To leave China because of m a o. They were scientist and raised her in tampa florida. The story really takes off and you find out why they had to leave China. Matthew's family.
Was also involved in china as well. It's quite interesting because how they tied everything together.

Definitely a family saga with twists and turns, well written, and characters that stick with you. Dark undertones, but a satisfying ending.

Like every family, there's jeartbreak and comfort. Definitely recommend.

Once she had believed that connection meant sameness, consensus, harmony. Having everything in common. And now she understood that the opposite was true: that connection was more valuable—more remarkable—for the fact of differences.

Wow. This is a book I'll be pondering for a while (and not just because of the complicated genetics science, which was cool to read about but honestly a bit over my head).

Real Americans alternates between characters that span three family generations—Lily, Nick, and Mei. I thought Khong did a masterful job of demonstrating how each character's life experiences, genetic and economic backgrounds, and generational traumas impacted the way they perceived the world and interacted with their family members. The issues in Nick's family are obviously different from mine, given that he descends in part from a family of immigrants (hence the title), and the novel indeed questions what it means to be a "Real American." However, I think the story also grapples with a larger issue that all Americans, regardless of socioeconomic or ethnic background, should also be cognizant of: how did our ancestors' lives shape their decisions (especially decisions that may have negatively impacted us?) And how can we break some of those bad habits decisions and become better for future generations?

Anyway, apparently I am really into reading about family drama right now. This was a good one!!

I loved everything about this book!
Everything about it was perfect! I couldn't ask for more. I'll definitely be recommending it to everyone.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read it.