Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang

JOAN IS OKAY by Weike Wang (Chemistry) is one of those novels that you read relatively quickly because you care about the main character and want to know what happens to her. At the same time, you want to savor the clever writing and the many perceptive comments. Wang, an award-winning author and a “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation, introduces readers to a 30-something female doctor who is defined by her work in a large urban hospital. Joan (or Jiu-an, her Chinese name, or Joan-na, as her mother calls her) is the child of Chinese immigrants and the distance between cultures as well as the distance between family members is hurtful and puzzling to her. For example, she asks, “Was it harder to be a woman? Or an immigrant? Or a Chinese person outside of China? And why did being a good any of the above require you to edit yourself down so you could become someone else?” Kirkus calls her an “idiosyncratic character,” and in many ways Joan does appear to have trained herself to suppress feelings about other people, to be somewhat neurodivergent in her ability to process social cues. That makes for some humorous interactions in this present-day story.  Wang also includes numerous references to the early days of the pandemic which will heighten awareness and emotions for readers. This excellent novel centers around a key question: “Who really wanted to be different? I wondered. And to be treated differently for things about them that couldn’t be changed. Most people who were different just wanted to be the same.” 

JOAN IS OKAY is a fabulous Book Group Choice since it will prompt much discussion – here is the guide provided by the publisher. Other favorite comments: “If learning required mistakes then teaching required watching different people make the same mistakes.” OR “I had become that daughter, the overprotective and possibly annoying kind, the daughter who believes that she is also the parent to a parent who doesn’t like being a child.” OR “And even if I hadn’t been born here, had I been one of those kids brought over by her parents at age two, five, twelve, then naturalized, what made them and their families any less American if they were the most American of all things, an immigrant in search of better days?”