Rental House: A Novel

fiction - a year after the COVID pandemic, a Manhattan couple (she is a lawyer who immigrated to Minnesota at the age of 6 with her Chinese parents in the 90s; he is a fruit fly researcher/professor from Appalachia) decides to rent a house on the Cape to host separate visits by their respective parents, with disastrous results; 5 years later they rent a place in the Catskills to get away but end up spending time with their neighbors there.

sometimes funny, sometimes observant, but the overall effect is sort of rambling to the point where I'm not sure if anything happened, or if I just glazed over the pages and missed it. I did like the characters though and seeing how Keru changes after all the interactions.

Are you a deadpan fan? If so, Weike Wang is YOUR author. In this, her third novel, a couple struggles through mixed race perceptions, parenthood, dog parenthood, and awful in-laws. Keru ("Keru as in Peru", which she almost uses as her last name) and Nate, seniors at Yale, meet cute at a party - he's wearing a shark fin and she's attending her first and last social gathering at college. They marry, and he pursues tenure as a grad student and professor studying fruit flies at a New York college, as she joins a consulting company and eventually moves to Chicago as a partner, for the money. Living apart presents problems, as they do REALLY love each other (which Keru constantly reminds herself and the reader), and the have-kids-or-don't issue resolves itself due to their long-distance relationship. This proves to be highly unsatisfactory to the in-laws, who are each invited to visit when the couple takes their annual vacation, first on the Cape and then in the Catskills. Her parents, Chinese-Americans who live in Minnesota and have never returned to China even for a visit, don't really accept their son-in-law, even as Nate struggles to learn Mandarin. His parents put on a show of accepting Keru's ethnicity, but are pressuring them to increase their family. And then there's their beloved dog Mantou, who acts as a loving buffer and a child surrogate. This is a novel that ponders the mysteries of marriage and the hazards of childhood, as the couple accepts that their own parents set awful examples for the continuity of the species. I snickered through many of the situations and circumstances and truly enjoyed myself.

Fun slip of a novel, describing a young couple growing into their marriage. Perfect read for finishing a flight.

The quiet, reserved, poor white Nate is swept up by hard working, success driven Chinese immigrant daughter Keru and self-discover occasionally ensues. Awkward conversations that we have all dreaded and experienced run throughout.

We watch as they achieve childless middle-age and wonder what else there was along the way.

A Chinese woman married to a white man and how their families cope with their marriage.

I hated this. A lot. I like self-indulgent books, but holy shit woman! Your pain is less profound and relatable than you think. Regardless of the theory hinted at in this book you can manage or even repress rage rather than throwing rocks at the heads of rude strangers or quietly giving away money to shyster inlaws. These characters' actions made no sense and held no interest at least for me. Angry repressed confused Chinese 1st gens, stupid Trumpian White trash relatives, traumatized Cultural Revolution fleeing relatives on the other side, and smart White guy husband who has the "privilege" of being mellow. Everything the main character does is irrational and selfish (even her generosity is selfish since all she cares about when generous is what people will think of her.) Either she is inauthentic or deranged (or sometimes both.) Despite this messaging, you can change your course without lashing out for years and suddenly rolling over to ask for belly rubs. You can understand your (terrible) parents without becoming your (terrible) parents. And your husband can acknowledge his (terrible) family and draw healthy boundaries beyond which he will cut off contact without you acting like your (terrible) parents and spouting about filial piety and the need to make Chinese people look good in front of the White people. It was so over the top. Maybe it was intended as satire? If it was it did not work for me.

I liked Wang's first book, Chemistry, her second book was and remains on my tbr, but the pain of succeeding professionally and financially through hard work where you have given up many other things is not interesting enogh in and of itself to support this book 3. The lens of the first gen Chinese American on the ignorant-by-choice White family she married into had some interesting moments but could have been so much better if she had focused on that issue, and tried to not disdain her subjects. I get it, they are people worthy of disdain, but you can't write a good character unless you identify in them something worthy of love and care and communicate that to the reader. Wang did not do that. It was short so I finished it, but in the end, all I felt was relief.

The only likable character in this book was the dog.