Told from three different view points: Lily, the daughter of Chinese scientists, her son Nick and finally her mother Mei/May.

I found it well written and enjoyed meeting the characters. As is usually the case some parts were stronger than others and I was most interested in Mei;May - particularly the parts set in China. I think this book will stay with me for a while and I think it would make a good book for a book club.

Thanks to Netgallery for the ARC.

Real Americans.by Rachel Khong isn't quite as compelling as her previous novel and it did remind me a bit too much of another novel, which just happen to have been released around this time.

I really enjoyed this book and read it in two days. It's the story of 3 generations, May, Lily and Nick and.leads from China during Mao's cultural revolution to 2030 in America. Each generation wants more for their children but people have to make their.own decisions and life doesn't always work out the way you want. A very enjoyable read.

Real Americans tells the story of family across three generations in different decades. Lily Chen is working as an unpaid intern in New York as the year 2000 approaches. She meets the ultra rich Matthew, marries him and gives birth to Nico, the trajectory of her life dramatically changes in ways she did not expect. She fears she has let down her parents, May and Charles, who fled China in the Mao era and care deeply about their work as scientists. We later see the story through Nico and May's eyes.

The premise and plot of Real Americans is very appealing, and the themes Khong is exploring are really interesting, unfortunately I just didn't get on with the writing in this - felt cold and fell a bit flat for me. Like other reviewers, sci-fi element didn't work and took me out of the story. Nonetheless I'm sure others will enjoy more than I did.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly granting access to the eARC - much appreciated!

At first this felt like a really strange book and I found it hard to get into. But I decided to keep going and I’m glad that I did. It ended up being a lovely story, detailing the lives of three generations. It showed the truths behind immigration and how it could lead to a better life overall.

Every once in a while a book will sneak up on you and you know it will be one that you will think about for a long time afterwards. This book is beautifully written, will have you immediately interested in the characters and where this story will take them. I look forward to reading more from this author.This book is not at all what I expected but in a good way and I ended up liking it more than I initially thought I would.

3.5 upped to 4
This is an excellent book, a family saga of three generations of an American family of Chinese origins.
There's different POVs, different historical moments and tone.
I found the part about Mei intriguind and fascinating. There're other parts that are more MOR and I found less interesting but this is a matter of taste.
Well written and good storytelling
It's a recommended novel.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

One of my favourite reads of 2024 so far - I am so delighted Rachel Khong is back. Her debut novel Goodbye, Vitamin is criminally underrated imo and one of my favourite titles to hand sell in store, though mostly out of print and difficult to get copies of. Real Americans is very different in tone but a fascinating story well-told, beautifully captures a family across three generations and is a gripping drama to boot.

Real Americans was one of my eagerly awaited releases of the year and luckily it ticked all the boxes of what I love in a novel .

It’s a novel about American identity told from the POV of three different generations of one family . The book is spilt into three parts and sort of three different genres .

Part 1 is where we meet Lily . It’s 1999 and 22 year old Lily is an unpaid intern. She meets Matthew who is heir to a vast pharmaceutical company and here begins a budding romance story …

In part 2 we have a coming of age story . It’s now 2021 and our narrator is Nick (Lily’s teenage son ) who is on a quest to find his biological father whose identity Lily has kept secret .

Part 3 is where everything sort of ties together . It’s 2030 and Mao’s China is on the brink of a cultural revolution . Our narrator is Mei (Lily’s mother ) who is recounting why she ended up fleeing to America and answers a lot of questions that arise in parts 1 & 2 !

It’s a proper family drama / saga type of novel , the kind that you can really get lost in . It’s about , class , family , race , the American dream . If you’re a fan of the ‘American Novel’ then you will need to add this to the tbr . It’s a perfect book to get lost in over the summer ( or cosy up with for those on the other side of the world !) .

A vast family drama told from the point of view from multiple characters from three generations. It really gives insight into the burden of being descended from immigrants, the pressure to do well and the conflict between being part of a different culture to your parents. The pursuit of the American dream is like a poisoned chalice that splinters families and ties to friends. A really ambitious book that also covers genetics and it really made me think about ethics and ethnicity.

I really enjoyed the parts of the book about life under the cultural revolution in China, it helped to understand Lilys parents strict and almost suffocating expectations of her and her intellect. The trauma is kept hidden yet it influences all the characters lives. A really moving read that has left me thinking about all of the big issues included, I think this book will stay with me a long time. Well written with believable complex characters.

Real Americans
By Rachel Khong

A multi-generational, genre mashup about a Chinese immigrant family, told in 3 sections, Lily, Nick and Mei.

Lily's section reads like a contemporary romance, with themes of powers imbalance within mixed race relationships and daughter/ father, daughter/ mother dynamics.

Nick's section is bildungsroman and there's a distinct change of narrative style. Deeply troubled by his unanswered questions about his father, Nick is unmoored, conflicted about his identity and his race, his family's assimilation and his mother's silence. This is the section that reminded me of the vibe throughout Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

Mei's section is another complete change of narrative style. It reaches back to her childhood on China during the terrifying revolution, her escape to America via Hong Kong, her lost love and her striving to survive in a new racist and hostile country. She gives answers to most of the underlying queries that your mind will form in Lily's and Nick's parts, and adds context but there remain loose threads. This was my favourite section, but that's my genre preference.

The tight structure might have been too restrictive for Khong to tell her story of what it means to be a "Real" American. There were times when the narrator unexpectedly changed mid-section, which was jarring, and spoiled my impression of the structure. The magical realism did not annoy me in the way many reviewers have mentioned, and the speculative element has given me much to ponder over what it means to be a "Real" anyone.

Overall, I admire what Khong has created here. It's a highly readable, thought provoking novel with a history lesson, and much to say about social politics, ethical politics and human nature.

Publication date: 30th April 2024
Thanks to #NetGalley and #randomhouseuk for the ARC

I really struggled with this, I'm afraid. The beginning was bizarre, there were so many weird things put in: just in the first few percent there was an implausible 40" flat-screen TV (implausible in itself, only a bit awkward to have in a taxi with two people, one man carried it easily up three flights of stairs); the heroine didn't know Matthew's surname yet he was the son of her boss; it claims her mum found the gene expression for the four-leaved clover then created a garden full of them, which was actually found somewhere else 11 years later than the narrative's date and also it doesn't work like that. Might have been an unreliable narrator and keys to that fact and magic realism has been mentioned above so maybe it was part of that, but it just jerked me out of the narrative each time and made me not trust the book at all. When I read a multi-generational saga about the immigrant experience I want to trust what I'm being told and I lost that and lost interest. Sorry!

A multi generational family saga is one of my favourite types of books and Real Americans was one I was looking forward to, it looked to have everything I look for in this type of novel..

The book tells the story of three generations of a Chinese - American family , told from three points of view and over three timelines.

The book opens with Lily just before the millennium. At a christmas party for the media company she works for as an unpaid intern, she meets Matthew. Matthew is wealthy , successful, easy going and heir to a pharmaceutical empire. Lily is broke, the only child to scientist parents and their lives are very different. A whirlwind romance ensues and this first section reads like a romance novel.

The book then jumps to 2021 to 15 year old Alex who lives on an isolated Washington island with his mother Lily. He is lacking a sense of belonging and the book follows him over the next couple of years as he grows up and looks for answers about his family.

The third section then jumps to 2030 and is told from the point of view of Mei, Lily's mother, now an elderly woman, this section traces her life from her early life in China , to her fleeing Mao's Cultural Revolution to her life as a scientist in America. This section was by far my favourite of the book.

Overall , this was an interesting if disjoined read. There were parts of this book I loved and other parts that just didn't work for me. I am not sure if it was the structure that let this book down for me but the parts that were good, were very very good. The story flows well once you get over being taken from one timeline and perspective to the next. I liked the first section, was indifferent about the second and loved the third.

This is a book about race, destiny, class, gender, family, identity, science and a dash of magic realism. It's very easy to read and easier still to get drawn into this family's history but the decisions made by these characters which had explosive effects on their lives were not examined in enough detail for me and yet I couldn't put this down.

I'd recommend this one yet I was a little frustrated by elements, this could have been brilliant but it just didn't quite get there for me.

3.5 -4 star

I completely underestimated this book. What starts as a fairly standard romance took so many twists and turns across the decades, back and forward in a complex family history that had me absolutely hooked. The only reason this isn’t 5 stars is because I wanted more of the women’s stories, and the son grated on me. I wish their sections had been longer. Loved it. Looking forward to seeing what this author writes next.

With thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for sending me an advance copy in return for an honest review.

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

Lily Chen is working as an unpaid intern in New York as the year 2000 approaches and knows she hasn't fulfilled the expectations of her parents, May and Charles - they fled China in the Mao era and are very successful scientists doing important work. Her marriage to Matthew and the birth of their son Nico sets in motion a trail of events that ricochet through three generations. We go forward to grown up Nick and backwards to younger May in order to fully understand.

Wow, what a book - absolutely brilliant! A contender for my best book of the year. A fascinating story, fabulous characters, and it covers some really interesting subjects (science, genetics, politics, history) too - all done in a smart, often witty, often poignant way. Very VERY highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

When your parents expect more of you, but you are happy attempting to living the American Dream. However being an unpaid intern is hard going. A very heart filling read that keeps you gripped.

Real Americans follows three generations of a Chinese-American family; Mei, Lily and Nick. We start off with Lily, in her 20s in the early 2000s. Then 20 years later we follow the POV of her son Nick, a teenager about to graduate. Finally we are thrown back in time to learn the story of Lily’s mother Mei & how she came to the US from China.

This started off strong and I thought Lily was a really compelling character to follow. Her story was by far the most interesting and I would’ve been happy for more of it. Sadly the rest of it didn’t particularly work for me and I didn’t love that the story was out of order generationally.

I felt like the things I needed to know were left out. Conversations, arguments, decisions that are pivotal were simply mentioned in passing. But yet there were paragraphs upon paragraphs of overly descriptive language, a usually unwelcome & unsatisfying detour.

The science stuff also was lost on me and I had no interest in it. Or maybe I just resented that it was included when some of the juicy drama was not. Very sad this wasn’t a favourite, I usually love a multi-generational novel.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable family saga spanning three generations. The non-linear nature of the narrative calls for the reader to pay full attention, but this is richly rewarded. It is a novel of social commentary touching on class, race and visibility. The subject matter has shades of Ishiguro and McEwan when these established authors have delved into how scientific developments affect our everyday lives. I look forward to what Khong writes next, a promising talent

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

Here’s a contemporary contender for the title of The Great American Novel, a rich three generation family saga which tackles some big issues in a highly readable, straightforward way.
Malaysian-born California resident Rachel Khong gained much critical acclaim for her debut “Goodbye Vitamin” (2017) and her reputation can only be further enhanced with this.
In a mix of first and third-person narratives and featuring sections spanning from 1966 to 2030 we settle down with Lucy, aged 22, American born of Chinese heritage in 1999 working as an unpaid intern for an online travel magazine. An office party had me anxious for her, recalling “Jaded” by Ela Lee (2024) but here it’s the place Lucy meets Matthew, the nephew of her boss.
There’s a lot of wealth in this novel although perhaps the more appropriate term is fortune, in the sense of both money and good luck and in the sense that some are just born fortunate. This sense of privilege does not extend to Lucy’s parents who started afresh from Communist China. There’s a lot on appearance and as the novel moves towards a not too distant future the work on genetics which lies behind much of the money takes a darker turn as gene therapy shifts towards polygenic screening- the creation of the most healthiest and most intelligent.
But more to the forefront is a detailed family piece showing the choices open to each of the three generations of the Chen family and the decisions made from these choices. Each feel they have some ability to briefly disrupt time in a world where time is running away from us all. The reason for this comes from an almost mystical encounter between Lucy’s mother and a lotus flower seed.
As suggested by the title it all feels very American but it is an America enriched by the cultural experiences of those not born in the country working alongside traditional white privilege with the edge of how fiddling around with DNA might affect all our futures. It works well as both family drama, a record of how we came to be and posits a scientific view of what might await us in our futures. Reassuringly, Rachel Khong leaves us with a feeling of hope and a belief in the value of family.
Real Americans is published by Hutchinson Heinemann in the UK on April 30th 2024. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

An intergenerational tale that is split into three parts, exploring family, belonging, and time. I struggled with the first third which follows Lily as she attempts to find her place while falling in love with someone from a far wealthier background. It read very much as a pretty standard romance, the class commentary lacked nuance and Lily felt so empty and dull as a character it was hard to connect with her. The last few pages of the first part brought me back to the novel. Part two follows her son as he tries to reconnect with his father, transitions into adulthood, and through his relationship with his mother, fleshes her out into a fuller character. The final part, for me, was the most engaging as we go back to Lily’s mother Mei who turned 13 at the start of Mao’s Great Leap Forward. A fascinating period and Mei’s journey, eventually to America, was interesting to follow. Weaving time and family, this was an enjoyable read, with three distinct narratives to follow.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.