Sour Heart: Stories by Jenny ZhangMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I received a free e-book copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for this opportunity!
Release date: August 1, 2017
Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang is a fictional book about stories of daughters of Chinese immigrants living in New York. The stories each follow different families but are all connected to each other in some way. They show the struggle of immigration and poverty in the 1990s.
I know that this is about poverty, but part of it seemed like it was trying hard to romanticize poverty. Maybe it was the slight prose with the first story that gave me that mindset, but it stuck throughout the book. The stories also varied--some were definitely worse than others. I remember the second story being disgusting and almost made me want to quit the book (due to scenes of sexual abuse), but it definitely picked up from there.
This book was diving into a genre I haven't explored too much. I think most of the characters in books I read are white and pretty well off, or they show little signs of struggle when poor. So Sour Heart broadened my reading horizons, and it did not disappoint! The stories were so interesting, and the characters were one of a kind. The stories did start to blend together for me, since they all had very similar tones, but that also may be because it took me a month to finish this book (not because it's bad!)
Although fiction, this book definitely made me realize how good I've had it in life. It makes you stop to think about others and what they've gone through to get where they are today. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves short stories, fiction, and stories of struggle and perseverance.
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