A Quitter's Paradise

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A graduate of Columbia ’ s MFA Program, she has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction and Kundiman. A riveting, wise, and singular novel about grief, love, longing, and the mysteries of family, A Quitter’s Paradise will linger in your heart and mind. If the son (who remains unnamed) will only read Lito’s letters, he will gain this terrific inside scoop. The present time storyline was definitely more engaging, and I wished the book had focused more on that (Eleanor's relationship with her husband, her affair with their co-worker Samir, and the rodent she stole from the lab). Author Mallery has created a delightful story of friendship between three women that also offers a variety of love stories as they fall in love, make mistakes, and figure out how to be the best—albeit still flawed—versions of themselves.

The book alternates between this present timeline and a past timeline focused on Eleanor's parents and her childhood.

In this novel by Elysha Chang, a young woman does everything she can to avoid the reality of her mother’s recent death and family’s estrangement, even as it becomes increasingly clear that her own story is inextricable from theirs.

It was an efficient way to employ a dual timeline with clarity, even when switching back and forth between Eleanor past and present. Rather than confront her grief and the ways she’s complicated her own life, she allows her actions to put her job and relationship in jeopardy. Our main character is quite messy and I’m so in support of messy and nuanced Asian American protagonists.

It is this personality trait of Eleanor’s that shapes much of the story in the present timeline, which ends up affecting her relationships with everyone around her. I would recommend checking it out at least once if you’re interested in any of the themes I’ve mentioned during this review, or if the synopsis ends up vibing with you in a way that resonates. She ends up pregnant after quitting the program, but their marriage seems to be rocky from the fact he simply gets everything and she struggles. Our protagonist in A Quitter’s Paradise is Eleanor, a fourth year PhD student whose mother has just died. A masterful portrayal of grief, depression, and the skeletons of your familial role showing up in adulthood.

Lito, the story’s dying protagonist, prepares his circuitous yarn by asserting “the best way to fit one story among other stories is, I think, always wise to consider. An impromptu celebration on the beach at sunset with champagne becomes a weekly touchpoint to their lives as they learn more about each other and themselves. Many described this book "hilarious": I don't agree with this, the main character is quite unique and quirky at times, but I would never say that she is funny or the book hilarious. Narisa was a wild child who mostly did as she pleased, even if it meant hurting others in the process (especially Eleanor, whom she bullied and ridiculed relentlessly). On one hand, I can see the merits of A Quitter’s Paradise’s concept: a Chinese American woman struggling to cope with the grief over her mother’s recent death as well as estrangement from her other family members.In Eleanor and her family, Elysha Chang has created captivating characters, who continuously surprised, delighted, and intrigued me—so much so that I didn’t want to leave them. A QUITTER'S PARADISE is mostly an uneventful novel, with all the messiness and complication of family dynamics.

A masterpiece that wrangles several lifetimes of wisdom, loss and heartbreak into a slim novel you can clutch to your chest, pass on to your sharpest, most mercurial friends and say: read this, feel this!

Eleanor was the most interesting character in all of this, as the background noise of her family’s immigration only makes what is happening to her—and the family—as a whole even sadder. Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.