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The Expatriates

Janice Y.K. Lee

3.63 · Rating details · 10,774 ratings · 1,272 reviews

Mercy, a young Korean American and recent Columbia graduate, is adrift, undone by a terrible incident in her recent past. Hilary, a wealthy housewife, is haunted by her struggle to have a child, something she believes could save her foundering marriage. Meanwhile, Margaret, once a happily married mother of three, questions her maternal identity in the wake of a shattering ...more

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Hardcover, 336 pages

Published January 12th 2016 by Viking

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Mar 19, 2016 Jen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star-favourites

Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

In this compelling story, we meet 3 American expat women in Hong Kong whose lives entwine due to an incident. As cosmopolitan as the life may sound, it can be riddled with cultural and economic challenges, personal struggles and sometimes, tragedies.

We meet Mercy, Margaret and Hilary. Mercy, a recent grad, is responsible for the incident that has left her with self destructive behaviours fulfilling the prophecy of bad luck following her.
Margaret, mot ...more

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May 13, 2015 Angela M rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley-reviews

4.5 stars

The writing in this novel is the kind of writing that gave me the feeling I was there among this group of people , right there while they were interacting with one another, right there when the author describes what they think and feel and I thought many times that I might feel the same way under the same circumstances. I don't mean the descriptive kind that paints a picture in your mind of what the place looked like but rather gives you a sense of who these women are .

There are the ex 4.5 stars

The writing in this novel is the kind of writing that gave me the feeling I was there among this group of people , right there while they were interacting with one another, right there when the author describes what they think and feel and I thought many times that I might feel the same way under the same circumstances. I don't mean the descriptive kind that paints a picture in your mind of what the place looked like but rather gives you a sense of who these women are .

There are the expatriates, and there is the group of the American expatriates of which the three women whose stories are focused on here , are a part of . It's a small community where everyone knows everyone or knows of everyone , or are connected in some way . As we are introduced to these three women, with alternating narratives in the third person, it's obvious that their paths will cross . It does in ways which are pretty realistic and pretty devastating.

There's Mercy , single and alone , a twenty something Columbia graduate, who seems quite lost, unsure of herself and is almost living the self fulfilling prophecy of failure as predicted by the old Korean woman her mother sought to learn her future from . Then there is Margaret , wife and mother of three , who has come to define herself in those terms and then questions herself . There's Hilary, rich , not so happily married , who desperately wants to be a mother .

It's a complex story in a way with so much going on here on several levels. There's the cultural differences , there's the class differences between some of the privileged people and their housekeepers and drivers. There are mothers and their children and how the children or inability to bear children define who these women are. It's about losses and realizations that the losses don't have to define who you are and that one might have the courage and ability to do that for yourself. It's about women with heart when you think they might not have the capacity.

It's difficult to say more without giving details about the story so I'll leave it here and just say I highly recommended it . I do have to add just one thing - I loved the ending !

Thanks to Viking and NetGalley. ...more

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Jan 13, 2016 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it

I was slow to warm up to this book, at one point putting it aside. Coming back to it a few weeks later, I found myself in a much better place to appreciate what Lee has accomplished with this novel. Until now, the only expats I had read about were Hemingway and his hard drinking partying crew, but they were expats by choice. This book follows three women who lives connect and affect each other in different ways. Except for Mercy, the youngest, a Korean American who had attended Columbia who come ...more

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Feb 10, 2016 Iris P rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Iris P by: Robert Blumenthal

Shelves: fiction, asia, womens, motherhood

The Expatriates

"Doesn't every city contain some version of yourself that you can finally imagine?"

Margaret, a character from The Expatriates

***********************************************

*WARNING MY REVIEW CONTAINS SOME MINOR SPOILERS*

I love it when an author uses a geographical setting as the focal point of a story and in Janice Y.K. Lee's elegant new novel, The Expatriates, Hong Kong certainly plays a major role.

For the expat American community featured in this novel, the former Briti ...more

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May 13, 2015 Esil rated it really liked it

Shelves: netgalley

I loved the very beginning and the very end of The Expatriates. Sandwiched in the middle was much I liked too. Janice Y. K. Lee set her book amongst the expat American community in Hong Kong. The story focuses on the intertwined lives of three women, who are each experiencing very difficult times in their lives: Margaret who is a mother of three and recently experienced a heart wrenching event in her life, Mercy who is a young American of Korean descent who seems to have a knack for bad judgment ...more

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Jan 13, 2016 Dianne rated it really liked it

Shelves: best-of-2016

Surprisingly good! I was afraid this story centering around 3 women living as American expatriates in Asia would devolve into a soap-opera'ish melodrama, but Lee managed to avoid that slippery slope in telling her tales. There is Mercy, an American-born Korean and Ivy League graduate whose every ill-advised move ends in disaster; Margaret, the wife of a multi-national company executive and mother of three who is trying to survive the unimaginable; and Hilary, an abandoned wife who is contemplati ...more

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Jul 07, 2015 Dorie - Cats&Books :) rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

Thousands of miles away from home, in Hong Kong, a group of very different women find themselves in a world of women basically left on their own, at home, with a plethora of all that money can buy at their fingertips.

Money can buy all the beautiful clothes you can veil yourself in, beautiful cars, drivers, large, gorgeous homes to decorate, inexpensive help to cook and clean for you, drive your children to all of their activities and watch them while you attend any number of activities, from tea Thousands of miles away from home, in Hong Kong, a group of very different women find themselves in a world of women basically left on their own, at home, with a plethora of all that money can buy at their fingertips.

Money can buy all the beautiful clothes you can veil yourself in, beautiful cars, drivers, large, gorgeous homes to decorate, inexpensive help to cook and clean for you, drive your children to all of their activities and watch them while you attend any number of activities, from teas and luncheons to spa treatments. You live in a bubble in Hong Kong, in the expatriate section, where nothing of the native Hong Kong can reach you unless you want it to.

We meet women whose lives will eventually touch each other in ways they couldn’t imagine and the men who share their lives. Many of the couples are here for a contracted time while their husbands work for global companies, lawyers, corporate executives, engineers, lured by the promise of a beautiful life and a large income. Some of the women left their own careers to follow their husbands. What the women didn’t expect to find is isolation, loneliness, depression, unfaithfulness and for one, the most extreme loss a woman can experience.

Mercy is a recent graduate from Columbia. She found herself an outsider at school among the truly wealthy students who allowed her entry only into the periphery of their group. Mercy’s parents are struggling immigrants who run a Korean restaurant. They all worked incredibly hard for Mercy to be able to attend university. Yet she wasn’t able to land a decent job in the US and came to Hong Kong for a fresh start which has still eluded her.

Margaret is a happily married mother of three who has done everything she can to adapt to life in Hong Kong. She’s attended all of the required dinners, hosted parties, etc while really trying to help her children adjust to the new situation. Things are going o.k. for Margaret until the unthinkable happens, her life is forever shattered.

Hilary is a wealthy woman her own right, struggling with her marital situation. She has been unable to conceive a child which she thought might help her floundering marriage. Her husband has been pulling further and further away.

The book is very well written with well researched history of the expat community and deep character development. The descriptions of Hong Kong and the neighboring countries with their beautiful beaches and Western resorts touch all of the senses. We can feel the extreme heat, the smells of the Asian cooking, the taste of the salt breeze on our tongues, etc.

I enjoyed the book and found only the ending to be unbelievable. For all of the women to rally around Mercy after all the hurt that she has caused them is just too much to accept. But I would still recommend this book for it’s unique plot and characters. ...more

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Nov 23, 2016 Margitte rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: community, reviewed, 2016-releases, asian-bookshelf, family-sagas, 2016-read, drama, fiction, women-s-fiction, cross-cultural-experiences

Three American expat women find themselves in Hong Kong, coming from vary different backgrounds, living three different lives. In a slow-moving build-up, the three women connect, driven by different forms of loneliness and a terrible, heartbreaking loss. An inconceivable tragedy!

Their lives are filled with endless parties, domestic helpers, shopping trips, lunches, tennis, children and more expats to fill up a frivolous, competitive, superficial existence in a high-density city.

Expats become

...more

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Jul 09, 2015 Elyse Walters rated it really liked it

Shelves: netgalley

Three very different American women, (Mercy, Margaret, and Hilary), are all living in same
expat community in Hong Kong.

These characters are recognizable in that they are each struggling with fears, or grief, or a
heartbreaking loss. They make choices that can't be reversed....the type of life consequences
that either strengths their sense of self ...or haunts forever.

The storytelling is tender, and beautiful...and very visual:
"After a few hours by the pool, Margaret goes back to the room, whe ...more

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Aug 29, 2015 Jenna rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2016-reading-challenge, grief-and-loss, trauma-and-recovery-or-not, hazards-of-travel, parents, favorite-reads-of-2016, reviewed, identity-crisis, outsiders

I've been holding off on reviewing this one as I waited to find some eloquent way to describe my feeling that this book was so solid and had such a seemingly broad appeal that I'd not hesitate to recommend it to anyone: it's like that friend or colleague you can count on to do a task or a favor, when the task/favor is giving pure Good Read.

I never did find a more eloquent way to say all this, but I decided it's probably enough to say that I think you're gonna like this book, and if you gave me I've been holding off on reviewing this one as I waited to find some eloquent way to describe my feeling that this book was so solid and had such a seemingly broad appeal that I'd not hesitate to recommend it to anyone: it's like that friend or colleague you can count on to do a task or a favor, when the task/favor is giving pure Good Read.

I never did find a more eloquent way to say all this, but I decided it's probably enough to say that I think you're gonna like this book, and if you gave me your debit card and sent me to the airport book shop to pick you up an emergency read, with nothing more to go on but that you like literary fiction, I'd feel safe buying you this book. Even if you didn't like it, we'd still be friends, you'd see where I was coming from with the selection, that it was someplace sensible, and you wouldn't demand a refund.

I'm not trying to damn the book with faint praise by calling it competent, generally enjoyable, and inoffensive. The author is skilled and sure and writes a relatable story of three women at different ages and stages in their life, from quarterlife to midlife crisis, all dealing with transition and identity issues related to life milestone areas including motherhood, employment, family, and love and marriage, and all set in the familiar/unfamiliar, insider-outsider world of the Hong Kong English-speaking expatriate community. A jacket copy review compared the book to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, and I think with respect to the shared sensitive portrayal of intergenerational expatriate identity crisis, this is apt. Another jacket review compared this to Sex and the City meets Henry James: as to the eloquent, elegant psychological portrayal and the subtle humor (yes there is) of Henry James I completely concur, but the SATC comparison is downright criminal! No offense to SATC, but this book is not that.

This book is eminently respectable and enjoyable, and for something so NOT heavy-handed (and in the hands of a lesser writer, it could have been!) contains unexpectedly powerfully moving sections - for you it may be something different, but for me it was the powerful meditation on mother/daughter connection that came in at the end. The characters are screwed up enough to be interesting but not so much as to become unrelatable or unlikeable or melodramatic. Coming off several disappointing and poorly edited (too long) reads, I miss the ease of reading this book and the way it insinuated itself into my consciousness and surprised me with its goodness and stuck with me after I'd finished it. I'd savor an opportunity to have this reading experience again after the recent duds I've endured!

I so appreciated AND enjoyed this book in such perfect proportion and to such a degree that THIS, rather than any mediocrity, is why I'm ineloquently recommending it as a safe bet should you need an enjoyable, admirable, immersive book for self or other. ...more

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Nov 18, 2016 Connie G rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, asia, hong-kong

"The Expatriates" revolves around the lives of three women who have moved from the United States to Hong Kong. Their lives have become intertwined due to several traumatic events. In the end, these shattered women support each other as they share the bond of love for their children. The novel is about loss, grief, forgiveness, marriage, motherhood, and the challenges that women face. The exotic setting of Hong Kong, and a look into the life of an expat added extra interest to the story.

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Feb 03, 2016 Sandra rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, china, eastern-roots

"I look like someone you might be friends with, but I’m not. There’s a hole inside me, and I can’t fill it with other people, although I wish I could."

Three women, all in a different phase of their life and in dissimilar life situations, are experiencing the expatriate life in Hong Kong. The youngest is Mercy, an American born Korean and Columbia graduate, who is single, unemployed and still trying to find her way around. Hilary and Margaret are both married, the former childless and trying ...more

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Mar 06, 2017 DeB MaRtEnS rated it really liked it

Shelves: thought-provoking, dramatic-fiction, africa-mideast-asia

A satisfying and incisive novel that frames the lives of three very different American women and the disjointed lives they come to lead after they move to Hong Kong. Margaret came with her children and corporate husband; Hildy joined hers, a lawyer and they both now live a life of ease. A car and driver, a housemaid, a cook, private schools for their children, nannies, tennis, lunch dates and vacations to Phuket. Mercy is single, younger and of Korean heritage whose intention to succeed like her A satisfying and incisive novel that frames the lives of three very different American women and the disjointed lives they come to lead after they move to Hong Kong. Margaret came with her children and corporate husband; Hildy joined hers, a lawyer and they both now live a life of ease. A car and driver, a housemaid, a cook, private schools for their children, nannies, tennis, lunch dates and vacations to Phuket. Mercy is single, younger and of Korean heritage whose intention to succeed like her fellow affluent Columbia university graduates has flopped, without any of those connections. An invitation from a wealthy Chinese college friend who has stayed in touch leads Mercy to Hong Kong, where, as the expatriates say, Hong Kong is a very small city - and Mercy is irrevocably linked to both Margaret and Hildy.

The sense of putting down roots, yet not attaching deeply to the home site that they have moved to is keenly evoked. North Americans who have been moved from one end of their country to due to fluctuating markets, industry and need for commodities, or in Canada the RCMP (Royal Mounted Police, the federal policing department) understand that they too are similar to expatriates, dipping into the community for an unspecified term. The need for personal connection and the means to find it are not necessarily easy, in moves where language, culture and values can be very different.

The novel explores the yearning of these expatriates, mirrored in the cast of characters in general, for a sense of belonging. How do you begin, under such artificial circumstances? Should you? What will bind you? How will you know one another? Should you dare risk in light of the ruining the beautiful facade needed to survive the expatriate gossips?

The Expatriates is a rich story, with a complex and emotional plot.

"This is what she has learned in the past year: You go through the motions of life until, slowly, they start to resemble a life."

It concludes hopefully... life is still life, after all. I enjoyed it. Recommended. ...more

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May 14, 2015 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-via-netgalley

(3.5) Three American women grapple with motherhood and identity in Hong Kong’s expatriate community. Margaret and Mercy are linked by their Korean heritage and a family tragedy. I found them both to be very sympathetic characters, while Hilary is simply not as interesting. The last quarter of the book is particularly strong, as you wonder just how the connections between these three will pan out. The novel reminded me most of Jung Yun’s Shelter, which also contrasts Asian and American values and ...more

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Feb 04, 2016 Barbara rated it liked it

The setting of this book is Hong Kong, the characters a trio of American women who are part of its expatriate community. Each woman is dysfunctional in her way, bogged down by elements of loss, confusion, paralysis, or grief. Their individual stories are interesting, as is what happens when their paths cross. But I never felt close to any of the three, and the neatness of the ending still unsettles me.

I bought this book based on rave reviews in The New York Times Book Review, Vanity Fair, People ...more

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Jan 18, 2016 Kasa Cotugno rated it really liked it

Shelves: theme-grief, author-visit, loc-asia-china

Janice Y. K. Lee is a wonderful storyteller. She gets into the heads of her protagonists, three very different women who have found themselves living in Hong Kong and find their lives entwined. Mercy, a young Korean American Columbia graduate, who never feels as if she quite fits in and that she is a harbinger of bad luck, came hoping such a radical change would improve her life. Hilary and Margaret are what is known as "trailing spouses," wives of men whose careers have relocated them to Hong K ...more

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Dec 04, 2015 Marina Sofia rated it liked it

Wry, witty, sometimes acerbic observations of expat life, interactions between expats and locals, between the different 'types' of expats. The setting and the lifestyle were described to perfection. However, the stories of the three women themselves seemed a tad melodramatic or soap opera-ish, their development as characters unconvincing, while that sentimental ending of idealising motherhood as the solution to all problems... I think the whole expat/trailing spouse, lack of identity, re-entry p ...more

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Jan 20, 2016 MaryannC. Book Freak rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary, drama, relationships, fiction

This was a tremendous read! This was my second novel by Janice Y.K. Lee and like her first, this one did not disappoint. The Expatriates settles around the lives of three women, Mercy, Margaret and Hilary, all who live or cross paths within an exclusive expat society in Hong Kong. Each woman's story was fascinating and well paced. I was totally engrossed with the details of expat life in another country and this was oftentimes hard to put down! Recommended.

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Dec 09, 2015 Wendy Cosin rated it it was ok

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 30, 2015 Billie rated it liked it

I liked it okay, but didn't find any of the three main characters particularly likable. I might have liked Margaret okay if she had worked through the aftermath of tragedy with her family rather than completely withdrawing from them and pretending she was the only one who was suffering. Or if she had taken even a sliver of responsibility for the tragedy on to herself, rather than piling all the blame on someone else. Maybe this is really the way in which a person would react to such an event, bu ...more

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Feb 27, 2016 Kalen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016-reads, 2016-books-by-women

I'm giving this one 5 stars. I can't put my finger on what grabbed me so much about this book but it may be that the characters were so well-developed and so believable. I don't typically like stories about motherhood but this one went well beyond that theme. I'll be thinking about it for a while and maybe will come back and write more when I've had a chance to think it through.

(I am a page/percentage counter--not this time. I was on a plane and often get restless with whatever I'm reading and ...more

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Jun 28, 2018 Julian Lees rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed THE EXPATRIATES. Given that I was born and raised in Hong Kong I was interested to see how accurately Janice Lee depicted HK. She got it spot on.

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Jan 09, 2016 Nnenna rated it really liked it

I've always wondered what it would be like to live abroad and this latest novel from Janice Y. K. Lee gave me a peek into the expat life. The story centers around three women: Mercy, a twenty-something struggling to find her purpose in life, Margaret, a mother of three who has a handsome husband and an envy-inducing life, and Hilary, who is desperate to become a mother herself. Lee weaves these lives together as each woman explores her own identity.

I found the setting and descriptions of expat c ...more

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Dec 26, 2017 Laurie Anderson rated it liked it

Shelves: literaryish

I enjoyed the details of ex-pat living a bit more than the tangled personal stories, but all in all it was a satisfying read.

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Mar 24, 2016 Teresa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

In less capable hands, it might have ended up as a Lifetime movie. However this author is amazingly adept at describing insights into what it is like to live abroad, class struggles, insecurities and desires of women at different phases of their lives. I was immediately interested in each character's story and the plot didn't turn out the way I had imagined. But, what really made the book for me was the ending. Thank God! I don't understand the mean, jealous and competitive nature of some women. In less capable hands, it might have ended up as a Lifetime movie. However this author is amazingly adept at describing insights into what it is like to live abroad, class struggles, insecurities and desires of women at different phases of their lives. I was immediately interested in each character's story and the plot didn't turn out the way I had imagined. But, what really made the book for me was the ending. Thank God! I don't understand the mean, jealous and competitive nature of some women. It's SO wrong. The quote "I hope we all make it!" is my anthem.

I deliberated for a few days on how I could write an adequate review illustrating the intense pull this book had on me. And, it was an intense experience! I'll give it my best shot.

What I liked: The best thing about this book is the writing. The author clearly lays out the character's thoughts in a way that makes you identify with some aspect of that life experience.

For example, on living alone: "It is important to do things right. Otherwise, when you live alone, it can delve very quickly. Stand on ceremony. Observe the rites. That's how you get through the day."

On becoming a mother: "This was the hardest thing she had ever done, and arguably the most important. And no one was acknowledging that it really, really sucked. A lot. This metamorphosis into that other being, that mother, was excruciating. She noticed it got better in quarters. Three months, six months, nine months. And then suddenly she woke up and she felt better. She was not back to normal--that baseline had shifted. But she could cope with her life."

The lure of online forums: "The etiquette of the online forum has to be learned through weeks, probably months, of lurking. Also, the tone. ... People were very extreme, punctuating their sentences with exclamation points and bobbing yellow smiley faces that winked or stuck out their tongue. It was like on Facebook, ... and whenever someone posts a photo of themselves, all their friends post profuse compliments, say utterly ordinary women are 'gorgeous!!!!' or 'stunning!' On the flip side, people become enraged easily and insult one another with a vehemence that would never exist in a face-to-face encounter. There are dozens of posts where people try to explain why they are right and the other is wrong. ... she wonders at the futility and hopefulness of these people, that they actually think they can change someone else's mind, that others will acknowledge their correctness. They must be young. She was that way too when she was young. If only it is explained enough, they think, surely everyone will understand, everyone will come around to their way of thinking. It is exhausting, being so hopeful. She remembers."

The three main characters - Mercy, Margaret & Hillary - are all interesting. Mercy is a single, recent college graduate from an Ivy League school who left New York to live & work in Hong Kong. Margaret is a young mother of 3 children who has recently moved to Hong Kong to follow her husband's career. Hillary is a married woman who has been living in Hong Kong for some time with her husband and they are drifting apart after encountering difficulties in conceiving a child.

I loved the descriptions of life as an expatriate as well. Hong Kong almost becomes a fourth character. "After moving, there was a new vocabulary to learn: 'lifts' instead of 'elevators,' 'flats' instead of 'apartments' -- vestiges of the British colony Hong Kong used to be. Also, instead of a housekeeper, the province of only the rich in America, everyone in her new world had a live-in domestic helper from the Philippines or Indonesia, who took care of all the housework and babysitting for the astounding sum of US$500 a month. They live in a particularly homogeneous enclave of expatdom, Repulse Bay, where half the people they see are white, and more that that are not locals, be they Chinese American or Japanese or Filipino. In this particular corner of Hong Kong, newly arrived Americans bump into one another at the supermarket and talk of their sea containers, arriving soon with their belongings, how to find a travel agent, how to get a driver's license. The husbands get up in the morning, put on their suits, and take taxi-shares or minibuses or are driven to work in the tall, shiny office buildings in Central, while the women putter around the house before getting ready for their tennis match or going in to volunteer at the library, since they mostly had to give up their jobs when they moved. It feels a bit like 'The Truman Show.'"

Each main character encounters a life altering experience. How they change and move on is at times mystifying, heart-wrenching and yet ultimately understandable.

Was I propelled through this book because I lived overseas as a child for 3 and a half years? We had a live-in housekeeper, Sarah, who could never remember my brother's name. She always called him "Dennis" instead of "Daniel." Did I experience a connection to one of the characters because I have biracial family members? I have family working for the State Department. Did that similarity fuel my interest? Was it the simple fact that I am a parent? I don't think so, but these connections certainly didn't detract either. I think the writer is gifted. I am a fan.

5* - Couldn't put it down. ...more

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May 15, 2017 Beth Bonini rated it liked it

Shelves: culture, mothers, contemporary

Have you ever seen the Global Rich List calculator on the CARE website? http://www.globalrichlist.net/
It lets you input your salary, and then shows you how that measures up globally. Even if you are paid modestly (ie, averagely) by UK standards, you will still discover that you are better off than 99% of the rest of the world. And what does this have to do with The Expatriates? In my opinion, quite a lot.

The Expatriates is about three American women who are living in Hong Kong. Margaret and Hil Have you ever seen the Global Rich List calculator on the CARE website? http://www.globalrichlist.net/
It lets you input your salary, and then shows you how that measures up globally. Even if you are paid modestly (ie, averagely) by UK standards, you will still discover that you are better off than 99% of the rest of the world. And what does this have to do with The Expatriates? In my opinion, quite a lot.

The Expatriates is about three American women who are living in Hong Kong. Margaret and Hilary are middle-aged, well-heeled spouses who know each other vaguely from their childhoods in the Bay area of San Francisco. Mercy is in her mid-20s; a second-generation Korean from Queens who went to Columbia and managed to hook up with a wealthy international crowd. All three women will be connected - first through the commonality of being expatriates in Hong Kong, and then more profoundly through motherhood and an accidental tragedy that links all of their lives. In one regard, the experience of these three women confirms that wealth and privilege cannot protect a person from human tragedies, both epic and mundane. It also points out that certain human 'tragedies' - infidelity and divorce, for instance - are even more likely to happen in the bubble of expat life. But does the emotional suffering of the world's wealthy have the exact same weight as the suffering of the world's poor? And how much of it is self-induced, anyway, by that oppressive combination of boredom and a surfeit of everything? Is it harder to pity the sufferings of a rich person? And how much of a rich person's 'sufferings' are actually derived from being really terribly spoiled? I feel that these questions, spiky and vexed, underlie everything that happens in this novel.

I've been an expatriate spouse in a third-world country - not Hong Kong, to be sure - but the experience of being an expat spouse is pretty much the same everywhere. While it would be churlish (arguably even despicable) to complain too much about living in a nice house, with local 'help' to take care of every need, there is something about the experience which makes a spouse feel superfluous - and quite detached from life. Some spouses learn to wallow in the luxury, and squander their time in various pleasurable and idle activities - mostly to do with socialising. Others throw themselves into charity work or travel or even some kind of job within the community, and their conscience grates all the time - even as they are enjoying themselves. But what you cannot ever separate yourself from is the knowledge (whether you consciously confront it or not) that you are extraordinary privileged compared to the local people. There is this underlying presumption, always, that your needs will be met - and that they will come first.

Author Janice Y.K. Lee nails the experience of being an expat wife, and maybe that is what I found so discomfiting about this novel. I didn't really like being an expat wife, and there is something that I deeply disliked in this novel. There is something brittle and unlikable about the whole scene. It's not that I think that Lee distorts the magnifying lens she looks through, but the edges of it are very sharp. Maybe it has something to do with tone. The character of Mercy - who is unlikable and pitiable in pretty equal parts - learns a certain way of talking and seeing the world while at Columbia. She is ironic, arch, sophisticated - but there is also something cruel and ungenerous about the way she sees and evaluates the world. I felt the same about Lee's larger authorial vision. I couldn't argue with its truthfulness, and yet I couldn't enjoy it, either. It's a fast-paced, engaging read - but as with many contemporary novels - I just felt it lacked depth and sincere human feeling. ...more

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Feb 21, 2018 Amy rated it liked it

Shelves: korea

I am dumbfounded as to how to review this book properly. I simply can't.

It doesn't matter if the writing is good, or the story is engaging. Some things are too hard to bear for some people. This was one of those books that made me shiver with the presence of my worst waking nightmare. At the center of the novel, set in Hong Kong and Seoul, Korea, are three women, each American expatriates, two of varying Korean descent. There is a tragedy involving a child, and that loss deafens for me any othe I am dumbfounded as to how to review this book properly. I simply can't.

It doesn't matter if the writing is good, or the story is engaging. Some things are too hard to bear for some people. This was one of those books that made me shiver with the presence of my worst waking nightmare. At the center of the novel, set in Hong Kong and Seoul, Korea, are three women, each American expatriates, two of varying Korean descent. There is a tragedy involving a child, and that loss deafens for me any other possibilities of experiencing this book. Margaret's pain, and the pain of five others in the book is unspeakable. This is the way I felt after seeing the movie Lion. The women are eventually and interestingly intertwined, and there are absolutely beautiful and even uplifting moments. But for me, its one of those experiences that had me up the entire night, just to finish the damn thing and get it out of my consciousness completely, all the while, kissing my little 7.5 year old boy over and over while he slept between us. This is one of those books that have you begging to hold your children close and never letting go. I prayed to God in the wee hours of the morning, so eternally thankful. If you want to put yourself through that experience, I'm sure the book was good. I couldn't tell. Not for mothers (and fathers) I think.

The book is on the carousel now in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, in a gorgeous Vidanta resort. Or it will be by the time I get down to the pool. Now starting Destiny by Design: Leah's Story, by Mirta Trupp. This is a personal giveaway from the author, and I'm excited to read it. That too will end up in the Carousel, lessening my return load by two books, and hopefully creating more exposure and buzz for Mirta's book. After that, I will be reading Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (to finish it before February 28th), and the Hate U Give, to finish it by March 2nd. I also have with me White Houses. Those three or four should tide me over for the rest of the trip, I think. ...more

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Feb 21, 2016 Mandy rated it it was amazing

Through the differing experiences of three women, Janice Y K Lee delves into expatriate life in Hong Kong and does so with an acute eye for the nuances of class, culture and race. She gets deep into the heart of an affluent community of Americans and their colonial lifestyle, but also deep into the hearts of the women themselves. Both a social satire and a moving exploration of motherhood, it’s a richly detailed and compelling tale, and the author seems to have made a quantum leap with this nove ...more

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Feb 25, 2016 Britta Böhler rated it liked it

Shelves: femlit, fiction, kindle-scribd, poc, 2016

What I liked most about the book where the parts dealing with the detached and often snobby expatriate life and those giving a glimpse of Hongkong. The book is well written, the prose quite crisp and to-the-point and the pacing keeps you going, but I had difficulties getting attached to any of the three female characters as they didnt seem to have much of a life beside being a wife and a mother which I found rather one-dimenional.

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Mar 11, 2017 Claire rated it it was amazing

I loved this book and was hardly able to put it down. The author's nuanced writing and sympathetically drawn characters elevated it far above chick lit. She explored the themes of motherhood, grief, and forgiveness without any cringeworthy sentimentality, a feat in itself. The ease of the writing also made me feel like I was right there with each of the main characters in Hong Kong, a place I couldn't even imagine before reading this book. I loved how unaffected the writing was - nothing forced, ...more

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About Janice Y.K. Lee

Janice Y.K. Lee

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Janice Y. K. Lee was born and raised in Hong Kong, the child of Korean immigrants. She went to the United States for school and graduated from Harvard College with a degree in English and American Literature and Language.

After college she moved to New York and worked for several years as an editor at Elle and Mirabella magazines before getting an MFA from Hunter College and starting her first nove ...more

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“Men strolled through life with a wallet in their pants, and women were saddled with children, the map, the bag, the half-empty water bottles. Resentment” — 2 likes

“This is the Hong Kong curse that expat housewives talk about in hushed voices: the man who takes to Hong Kong the wrong way. He moves from an egalitarian American society, where he’s supposed to take out the trash every day and help with the dinner dishes, to a place where women cater to his every desire—a secretary who anticipates his needs before he does, a servant in the house who brings him his espresso just the way he likes it and irons his boxers and his socks—and the local population is not as sassy with the comebacks as where he came from, so, of course, he then looks for that in every corner of his life.” — 2 likes

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