Explore Family Trust Formulated By Kathy Wang Presented In Paper Edition

Trust” is the debut novel by Kathy Wang that tells the lives of a ChineseAmerican family living in the Silicon Valley, The story opens with Stanley Huang, the patriarch of the family near death, He has always told his two children that his estate is valued in the Millions of dollars, without providing details, Stanley is on his second marriage to Mary, who is not the childrens mother, Both children dream about what that fortune could provide for their current status,

Meanwhile, Linda, the first wife and mother of the children, highly doubts he has a large estate, Nonetheless, she wants her children to see the Will, to learn the details of his estate, This is the backbone of the story, What adds the meat and fun is when author Wang tells the backstory of the family, She educates the reader of the ChineseAmerican culture, where parents push their children in the name of love, The children are expected to go only Ivy League schools, attain high paying jobs with respectable titles, The pressure of the ChineseAmerican family is felt with Wangs beautiful writing, What is astounding is that she writes her characters as not always likeable yet, the reader feels their stress and wants the best for them,

Whenever any patriarch dies, there is family drama, This story is one of all families concerned with their inheritance and getting their fair share, Getting a glimpse of the ChineseAmerican culture made the read truly enjoyable,
Wow. What a bunch of assholes! It's one thing to have unlikeable characters, or "raw, honest humans" but, . . as a reader if you don't know enough about them and have any sort of justification for their behavior, it's hard to care about them, I did, slowly and grudgingly, come to care about a couple of the women in the book, but I honestly wish that the son, Fred, had not been a POV character at all.
Every time I started to feel sympathy for him, he would think or do something so completely douchey that I just thought, Nope, But the story is fascinating, and I frankly loved Linda! Family Trust pulled me in from beginning to end, with a story that blends the humor and sadness of family dynamics against the backdrop of the Silicon Valley.
Each chapter features one family members perspective and you collect small insights that come together as the story unravels, You learn about the central character, Stanley, mainly through his familys lens, My favorite parts were the interactions between Linda, Stanleys exwife, and her daughter, Kate, This is definitely a book that I want to read a second time, as there are some brief but memorable moments throughout, ranging from a hilarious take on a visit to an Hermes store to very real aspects of a person experiencing a sharp health decline.
I received this ARC from a goodreads giveaway hosted by William Morrow Books! And here is my honest review:

The first thing that caught my attention was this cover.
Is it not beautiful The gold and red contrast in such a gorgeous way and the gold floral design weaves in and out of the text,

When I held this book, the best description I could come up with was meaty, It felt thick, it felt like there were a lot of words, a lot of story to tell,

I wasn't disappointed, This is a family drama, Characters and characteristics you'll both love and hate, Situations that we've all heard about on the news, or more intimately through friends or family, or maybe even experienced, The trials and tribulations of relationships: marriages, parenthood, childhood, working relationships, friendships,

I felt satisfaction as I finished this book, The format was something I particularly find alluring in novels,different point of views, alternating between, It keeps the story from getting stale, or too involved, it gives you breaks, It gives you cliffhangers and then lets you forget about that character just long enough to be jolted when you turn the page and it's back to their chapter,

This book follows the Huang family: Stanley amp Linda and their two grown children Kate and Fred, Stanley and Linda are divorced and have been for about a decade when the book begins, Stanley has since remarried to Mary, a woman very much his "junior, " Kate is married with two small children of her own, Fred is in a relationship with an angling saleswoman, Erika, and he's already been married and divorced,

Some of the quotes in this book just left me wanting to read and reread the lines over again, For example "Instead, life just seemed to be a series of small mistakes, which you continued to make over and over again, " Isn't that just so perfectly true and insightful

One underlying theme I noticed was that the Huangs were all a little angry they may have shown it in different avenues, but they all were nursing feelings of injustice, whether valid or not.
Sometimes it cast bit of a cynical view on people and life, but realistic, and not overwhelmingly so, just honest,

Another aspect of author, Kathy Wang's writing that I really enjoyed was her set up, Sometimes I'd be reading a chapter and think "wait, . . where is this taking me" but every anecdotal memory a character recalled had a point and played out immediately after, It was a very satisfying feeling to have the question where is this going answered almost always so immediately,

It was an insight into a world I don't know much about, nor am that interested in financial industry investing, stocks, venture capitalism, etc, But it didn't beat you up with industry vernacular or bog you down in too many details, It was enough that the reader could understand the situation without drowning in acronyms or numbers,

My favorite character was definitely Kate, When you read it, let me know who your favorite was, too!

I'd recommend this novel, It comes out in October of! Further, the author has been active on instagram and interacted with my posts, which I always find especially endearing, Déjà vu, déjà vu, déjà vu, .
Im not going to finish this because I wasnt enjoying it enough,

I live here in Silicon Valley So I thought I might enjoy this, Its not a bad book,
but I rather read something else,

If you want to see more specific problems

Im having with it then read a little review I just wrote a few minutes ago or not
about the BOOK.
. . ”Crazy Rich Asians”, by Kevin Kwan I had the hardest time with this book and really only finished it because it was for my book club, The characters are so hard to like and sympathize with and its not till the final couple of chapters that it even got interesting,

how early the days turned black once winter began,

Ooh, this is a good book for fans of those literary family dramas about rich people and the unbelieavable shit they get up to, It's sort of like a sitelink Celeste Ng novel but with a bit more melodrama and obnoxiousness a bit like a quieter, more serious sitelink Crazy Rich Asians.


It's a story about a wealthy ChineseAmerican family in Silicon Valley, and how their patriarch's pancreatic cancer diagnosis affects them all, The similarities with Ng's work are most obvious in the way Wang explores character interactions and tells her story through details and careful observations of human behaviour, The characters are in turn annoying and sympathetic, which makes for an interesting and multilayered read,

There's Stanley Huang himself a selfish old man prone to violent fits of temper, There's his smart and financially savvy exwife Linda, who has just gotten into online dating his son Fred, a Harvard Business School graduate who is trying to boost his career and impress his golddigging girlfriend his daughter Kate, the breadwinner in her household, currently supporting her husband's startup and his second wife Mary, who may or may not be lurking in hopes of a shiny inheritance.


If you like books about carefullydrawn characters and some juicy drama, sitelink Family Trust should hit the spot, Wang handles each character with care and sensitivity, but also isnt afraid to poke fun at them, Humans are ridiculous, especially in the upper echelons of the business world, so be prepared to roll your eyes at times such as when Fred despairs over his mediocre achievement of landing a job with aK salary!

What was Denny up to in the attic What was her husband doing with his life

Additionally, the mysteries of Stanley's will and finding out exactly what Kate's husband gets up to in the attic every day make for a compelling read.


Really, though, there is an even greater value in this book, It serves as a portrait of a modern generation of ChineseAmericans who have been pushed to achieve, attend America's best schools, and break into the business and tech worlds, Wang portrays this world with its flashy promises and subtle racism and notsosubtle sexism, and taps into an experience that many East Asians are having right now in America,

In thecensus, East Asians made up just overof the US population and yet inthey made up more thanof the workforce at Google, Intel, Yahoo, Hewlett Packard, and LinkedIn.
sitelinkOne ChineseAmerican engineer described feeling "stuck in between" being Asian in Silicon Valley viewed as a highperforming and privileged group, often overlooked in affirmative action programs, but still stereotyped and held back from the majority of executive positions.


The experiences had by Fred and Kate in this book will mirror that of many others in the second decade of thest Century, And for those readers, like me, who do not fully relate, it is perhaps even more interesting to gain insight into the lives of Chinese and EastAsian Americans in Silicon Valley.
A valuable, engaging read,

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