Book Review
Rental House by Weike Wang
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publication Date: December 3, 2024
Format: Hardcover - 224 pages
Paperback - 224 pages
Kindle - 1876 KB / 218 pages
Nook - 2 MB / 224 pages
Audible - 5 Hours 47 Minutes
ISBN (Hardcover): 978-0593545546
ISBN (Paperback): 978-0593949030
ASIN (Kindle): B0CVR8VZHV
ASIN (Audible): B0CXBR95H5
BNID: 978-0593545560
Genre: Literary Fiction
Buy The Book:
Disclaimer: I purchased a hardcover copy of the book via my subscription to Book Of The Month.
Book Description:
From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations
Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.
Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?
With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular” style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.
My Book Review:
Rental House is a thought-provoking novel that looks at the dynamics of an interracial marriage, and the complicated cultural differences of their families.
Keru and Nate are an interracial married couple who met in their senior year in college. Keru and her parents are Chinese immigrants, while Nate is from a white southern American family. Author Weike Wang weaves a realistic tale that follows the cultural differences that Keru and Nate face in their marriage and within their families. Their story is complex and multi-layered, they are complete opposites in their views of life, and when you add in the obvious cultural differences of their families, it makes it harder to keep their marriage together.
I really wanted to enjoy reading this story, but the characters were so annoying and rigid, it seemed like there were no happy times within their marriage or with their families. This story delved into the complexities of this interracial marriage, and how dysfunctional their family unit really is. It seemed like their families never really took the time to get to know each other, and their rigid maintenance of their cultural traditions demonstrated just how far apart this family really was, and how they were unable to embrace their differences, and find a way to make the family connect. Like the old saying goes, when you get married, you also marry your in-laws!
Rental House is a realistic and compelling story that will make you ponder your own family dynamic.
RATING: 3 STARS
About The Author
Weike Wang was born in Nanjing, China, and grew up in Australia, Canada, and the United States. She is a graduate of Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her doctorate in public health. Her first novel,
Chemistry, received the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, the Ploughshares John C. Zacharis First Book Award, and a Whiting Award. She is a “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation and her work has appeared in The New Yorker. She currently lives in New York City.
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