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A review by bangkok67
White Ivy by Susie Yang
3.0
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Susie Wong's debut novel is a story of immigration with all the suffering and sacrifices I expected. Ivy Lin didn't move to the USA with her parents. She stayed back in China until they could afford to bring her and her brother over. Ivy learned how to survive under her grandmother, Meifeng's tutelage. Ivy became an expert pickpocket and petty thief. When Ivy arrives in America, she knows that she will never fit in but sets her sights on a rich blond boy named Gideon.
Ivy can attend a private school because her father works there, and she is a scholarship student, a fact she desperately tries to hide. Ivy and Meifeng find yard sales a heavenly deliverance of treasures sitting out to be pocketed by each of them. Ivy doesn't have a good relationship with her mother, Nan. Their fights often end up with a slap in the face or worse corporal punishment. Ivy is quite miserable all the time, and the idea of how she wants to live her life begins to take shape.
I understand how Ivy viewed all those lovely homes in Massachusetts with loving families. If you drive down the street on an autumn night, the houses are aglow with warm light and show what appear to be perfect families around the dinner table or the fireplace, snug and secure, happy. Ivy decided that she would have that life, no matter what she had to do to get it.
Ivy hit loads of roadblocks to her goal, but when she had the opportunity, and Gideon reappeared in her life as a young adult, she went for it. Ivy would not lose her man even if other people in her life were closer to her heart and soul. Ivy's future is not absolute, but the story was believable even though the narrator was so unlikeable.
White Ivy was a long winding read. I enjoyed this new young talent and wish her every success with this and future books. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
Susie Wong's debut novel is a story of immigration with all the suffering and sacrifices I expected. Ivy Lin didn't move to the USA with her parents. She stayed back in China until they could afford to bring her and her brother over. Ivy learned how to survive under her grandmother, Meifeng's tutelage. Ivy became an expert pickpocket and petty thief. When Ivy arrives in America, she knows that she will never fit in but sets her sights on a rich blond boy named Gideon.
Ivy can attend a private school because her father works there, and she is a scholarship student, a fact she desperately tries to hide. Ivy and Meifeng find yard sales a heavenly deliverance of treasures sitting out to be pocketed by each of them. Ivy doesn't have a good relationship with her mother, Nan. Their fights often end up with a slap in the face or worse corporal punishment. Ivy is quite miserable all the time, and the idea of how she wants to live her life begins to take shape.
I understand how Ivy viewed all those lovely homes in Massachusetts with loving families. If you drive down the street on an autumn night, the houses are aglow with warm light and show what appear to be perfect families around the dinner table or the fireplace, snug and secure, happy. Ivy decided that she would have that life, no matter what she had to do to get it.
Ivy hit loads of roadblocks to her goal, but when she had the opportunity, and Gideon reappeared in her life as a young adult, she went for it. Ivy would not lose her man even if other people in her life were closer to her heart and soul. Ivy's future is not absolute, but the story was believable even though the narrator was so unlikeable.
White Ivy was a long winding read. I enjoyed this new young talent and wish her every success with this and future books. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.