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The Love Wife
by Gish Jen
Carnegie Wong, his wife Blondie, their two adopted Asian daughters, and their half-half bio son have their lives turned upside down when Mama Wong arranges from her grave for a mainland Chinese relation to come look after the kids.
Knopf, 400 pages
09/14/2004
$24.95
ISBN: 1400042135
Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Publishers Weekly
This novel has a robust, lived-in quality that makes you miss it when it's over.
Library Journal David Rabens
Jen's latest raises many questions about the significance of race relations within family life and provides an illuminating portrait of Chinese Americans. [July 2004, p. 70]
Los Angeles Times Bernadette Murphy
Though at times the plot is a three-ring circus, with antics happening all around, the story is not slapstick. Ultimately, the book becomes a tale about family love and commitment in an era of political correctness and our society's at-times awkward embrace of multiculturalism. At heart, the novel demonstrates with vividness and wit how a decision to love can be equally, if not more, lasting as the biological impetus to love. [14 Sept. 2004, E9]
The Onion A.V. Club Keith Phipps
Though still a witty, fond observer of her characters, Jen allows a slow-building pessimism to seize hold of her story.
USA Today Dierdre Donahue
Authentic language, dead-on depictions of family life and accurate portrayals of multiracial families, including those with adopted children, are meticulously wrought. The book's only flaw is a weak subplot that deals with Lan's romantic relationships with two minor characters. It's a throwaway, hyper-real story line that The Love Wife could easily have done without. [12 Oct. 2004, p. 4D]
San Francisco Chronicle Heller McAlpin
So many promising novels become limp as they progress. Jen's remains crisp and fresh as it builds impressively to a satisfying and moving climax.
The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Charles Foran
The Love Wife is delightful at the start, and stirring and sad toward the end. In the middle are passages of genial dialogue and witty observation, not always compelling or necessary. [23 Oct. 2004, p. D15]
The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
With "The Love Wife" Ms. Jen has served up a flawed but undeniably big and big-hearted story.
Booklist Donna Seaman
Jen, as keenly attuned to the incongruous as to the profound, orchestrates predicaments rich in irony and revelation to create a smart, piquant, and far-reaching tragicomedy. [July 2004, p. 1799]
Houston Chronicle Barbara Liss
Jen's flat-out perfect depiction of the Wongs captures them in all their endearing idiosyncrasies.
Kirkus Reviews
[A] psychologically and politically astute tale of American multicultural family life.
Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
The first half of The Love Wife crackles with mounting dramatic and sexual tension, but Jen never resolves the crisis she sets up so exquisitely.
Washington Post Y. Euny Hong
Jen is an unassailably talented writer, but her strong prose only brings the underdeveloped state of her characters into even sharper focus.
New York Review Of Books Jennifer Schuessler
The Love Wife is Jen's most ambitious book in several ways--and also, perhaps, her least successful.
The New York Times Book Review Craig Seligman
For the first time, Jen's writing is bland and unremarkable. In striving to create credible voices for her characters, she's abandoned her own.
 The average user rating for this book is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
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