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    The Wangs vs. the World
    The Wangs vs. the World
    The Wangs vs. the World
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Wangs vs. the World

    Written by Jade Chang

    Narrated by Nancy Wu

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    A hilarious debut novel about a wealthy but fractured Chinese immigrant family that had it all, only to lose every last cent-and about the road trip they take across America that binds them back together Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family's ancestral lands-and his pride. Charles pulls Andrew, his aspiring comedian son, and Grace, his style-obsessed daughter, out of schools he can no longer afford. Together with their stepmother, Barbra, they embark on a cross-country road trip from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the upstate New York hideout of the eldest daughter, disgraced art world it-girl Saina. But with his son waylaid by a temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1,000-thread-count sheets, and an epic smash-up in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the old world and the new, between keeping his family intact and finally fulfilling his dream of starting anew in China. Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America-and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateOct 4, 2016
    ISBN9781501936562
    Author

    Jade Chang

    JADE CHANG has covered arts and culture as a journalist and editor. She is the recipient of a Sundance Fellowship for Arts Journalism, the AIGA/Winterhouse Award for Design Criticism, and the James D. Houston Memorial scholarship from the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. The Wangs vs. the World is her debut novel. She lives in Los Angeles.

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    Reviews for The Wangs vs. the World

    3/5

    232 ratings33 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I'm not entirely clear what this book is supposed to be. The Wangs vs. the World has an interesting storyline but isn't exciting enough to be plot-driven. According to some, it is hilarious, but I am not among those who found it humorous. In fact, I didn't even realize it was supposed to be funny until I read it on the cover after I finished the book. It falls short of being a coming-of-age story because the Wangs just don't learn anything. Each time you approach a much-needed epiphany, the character blithely strolls past it without evolving in the slightest seeming to merely happen upon the occasional good decision with no moral input or certainty involved. Nor does it qualify as character-driven by virtue of having unlikeable characters who are unlikeable in perfectly mundane ways.Ultimately, I wasn't moved, I didn't laugh, I wasn't thrilled, and I didn't learn. Three stars are only warranted by the quality of the writing and the rant at the beginning which was rather fabulous. I would be amenable to checking out another book by Jade Chang on those merits alone though. Frankly, her wordcraft is the only reason I finished the booked and gave it three stars. That skill gives me great hope for her future work.I received a complimentary copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway. Many thanks to all involved in providing me with this opportunity.
    • 4/5
      384 pages of some hilarity, but not as much as the description will have you thinking. More delight than I was expecting considering Charles Wangs situation... and as should be expected...a little heartbreak. The writing was wonderful, and it was an intriguing perspective on that time in our nation’s history told through the story of immigrants Charles and Barbra and three adults or nearly-adult children who grew up here and had never wanted for anything...they have no idea how to budget...or how to do with less... because they never had to. For the most part, this is a fun and compelling read.
    • 3/5
      3.2 stars
      I actually expected this book to be more of a fluffy lighthearted romp, but it actually had slightly more depth or substance to it. So instead I will describe it more as a lighthearted family narrative. I probably would have given it closer to a 3.7 rating if there wasn't so much untranslated Chinese dialog.
    • 1/5
      Gave up on this one. Every single character irritated the heck out of me and I just didn't care enough about a single to finish or to even skip to the end and see how it ended.

      I was initially turned off after the story about Mei Lee, but I tried to keep going after that. It rubbed me the wrong way and sealed my dislike for the main character. I made it about 4 more chapters, but I just could not read about Saina and Leo and Grayson anymore.

      Also, I really wish there were translations for when the family spoke in Mandarin. Sometimes you could pick up on context clues or there was a brief explanation but I really want to know what was said. A few times is fine, but it was pretty consistent in this book.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the characters in this book -- they were nicely differentiated, and I felt invested in each of their plot lines, though I think I could have used more of each, too. The book almost lost me at the very end, but I loved the last few lines and I thought it tied the story together well.
    • 4/5
      I don't know how to review this book. The story of Charles Wang and his three children with his first wife. The 2nd wife Barbara. The loss of a fortune. The travel across the United States and then the trip to China. A good solid book and I liked it just fine.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It was a rollercoaster of emotions and Chang uses multiple perspectives in a really effective way, giving each character a distinct voice without causing any disconnect. The continuously changing backdrop, the many layered narrative, and the movement between present and past captured an essence that is hard to describe but kept me glued to the book and invested in the Wangs. This is a star of a debut novel.
    • 4/5
      I didn't think that this book was incredibly funny, as it was supposed to be. But I still really, really liked it.

      I think that Chang's strength is her ability to create realistic characters. I loved Charles for his big dreams, his constant belief that something better was just around the corner. After the accident, I loved Grace, mostly for her love for the world and her sudden realization that we're all the same, and we're all in it together. And I loved Andrew for his big heart and his notions that everyone should be just as sentimental and serious as he is.

      The only thing I didn't like that some of the Chinese wasn't translated. Most of the time, you could use context to figure it out, but not always, and Google Translate wasn't very helpful.
    • 2/5
      Easy reading, but felt like a waste of time. Didn't find much original, thought provoking observances-boring.
    • 3/5
      The American Dream. Anyone can come to America and through hard work, innovation, and perseverance, make a fortune. But what isn't often said is also true: anyone can lose that fortune too. In Jade Chang's novel The Wangs vs. the World, she creates a family who has lived the first part of the American Dream and are now faced with the far less appealing, generally unstated second part, the loss of everything.Charles Wang moved to the US from Tawain and created a cosmetics empire, earning fabulous riches in the process. He lives with his second wife, Barbra, and their housekeeper, Ama, in a palatial home in Los Angeles. Adult daughter Saina was a darling of the art world before her last show flopped and her fiance humiliated her, whereupon she used her trust fund and her earnings to buy herself a farmhouse in upstate New York. Son Andrew is in college, although to his father's chagrin, he dreams of being a comedian. Youngest daughter Grace, still in high school at an expensive boarding school, is a fashion blogger. As the novel opens though, Charles has lost his fortune. He leveraged everything he had against all expert advice, partly because of the recession and partly because of a poor business decision, so he's lost it all, home, cars, money, possessions, children's trust funds, everything. Packing his wife and housekeeper into the secondhand car he gave Ama years ago and the only one not repossessed, they head out from LA to pick up Andrew and Grace (paying for their schools is out of the question now) and drop Ama off at her daughter's house on their way across the country to Saina, who still has a home and money they can live off of. Along the way, outrageous misadventures ensue and Charles' past is explained even as his future plan, to return to a China he's never seen and reclaim his stolen ancestral lands to make a new start comes into focus.This is both an extended road trip novel and a dysfunctional rich people novel with a dash of the immigrant experience thrown in. The complications each of the Wangs face and their reaction to their new reality could be heartbreaking or entertaining depending on how the reader feels about the characters. Unfortunately, the characters aren't terribly likable, coming off as selfish and entitled. In fact, Charles is a bit underhanded and proud while Barbra is focused and angry. The siblings aren't much better but their interactions with each other and their reading of their new, unwanted situations, are a bright spot in the novel. This is billed as a deeply funny novel and there are in fact ridiculous situations but the humor just didn't land. The cross country journey, where each Wang is forced to discover who they are, is interrupted by chapters about Saina and the life she's made away from the rest of the family, mistakes, heartaches, and all. Despite the long road trip, this is not a book centered on plot. It is instead a book about relationship. The narration here is third person limited with each character being the focus of their own chapters, giving the reader insight into the effects of this financial reversal on all of the Wangs, no matter what they might say to each other, and giving a fully rounded picture of the family as a whole and as individuals. Ultimately well written, I didn't find the promised humor and it lacked something until the final chapters. In the end though, it found at least a bit of heart.
    • 3/5
      Charles Wang emigrated from Taipei to Los Angeles in the late 70s, and used his father’s business connections to build a makeup production empire and become very, very rich. Then, in the Great Recession of 2008, he lost everything. Charles packs up his second wife and their housekeeper, checks his youngest child out of her expensive boarding school, and leaves his foreclosed house to drive across the country. They pick up the middle Wang child, Andrew, from college, on their way northeast to the home of the oldest child, Saina, in upstate New York. When they get there, Charles plans to return to China, where he technically never lived, to reclaim the land stripped from his ancestors by the communists.I struggled to write a plot summary of this book that sounded at all interesting. There’s a lot of aspects to the story that seem like they could be interesting, but never pan out to anything. Ostensibly, the Great Recession is the cause of the Wangs’ downfall, but actually Charles just made a bad business decision, against the advice of his business advisors, and stupidly bet his whole house and his children’s multi-million dollar trust funds on it. I couldn’t see any actual connection to the Great Recession besides the timing. The characters are deeply unlikeable - Charles cheats on his wife constantly, his wife Barbra hates everyone, and eldest child Saina cheats on her boyfriend with her ex-boyfriend who she knows just got another woman pregnant. Being in any of their heads is very unpleasant. I did enjoy the ending, but it was not worth the trip to get there.
    • 2/5
      The characters were depressing and flat. This was a disappointment.
    • 2/5
      This maybe the straw that breaks my camel's back. Just one too many workshopped novels that starts with a soapy story and shoehorns in something about ethnicity. This is no Joy Luck Club. It's just a tale of spoiled rich people losing their money and going on a long journey (geddit?) to find out what "really" matters. Oh, and they're Chinese-Americans... so... er... there's that.

      The best bits are the interactions between the children. The worst bits are any time any of them consider in any way what their Chinese-ness means. It just feels workshopped and inauthentic including two separate scenes where a wannabe stand-up delivers excruciating sets about being 'Asian'.

      Just not good enough.
    • 3/5
      Charles Wang was rich, having built a cosmetic empire in American despite arriving as an immigrant with (virtually) nothing. The operative word there is “was”. Charles has lost everything: the factories, the bank accounts, the many cars, and the Bel Air mansion. But he’s still got his three children, his second wife (but first love) Barbra, and a dream. His dream is to reclaim the Wang ancestral properties in China, for which he carries the deeds like a talisman. He just has to gather up his children from their boarding schools and colleges, drive them across the country to New York State to his eldest daughter’s house, and then he’ll put his plan in motion to make his comeback, this time in China. It’s going to be a road trip like no other. Well, actually, it’s a bit like some other road trips, but that’s no bad thing. Jade Chang admirably keeps the pace of this gently comic novel moving by scrolling through the principal characters’ perspectives chapter by chapter. We see Siana, the oldest Wang daughter ensconced in her rural New York hideout (a recent personal and PR disaster has temporarily sidelined her artistic career). Then there is Andrew, at college in Phoenix but longing to be on stage embarking on his chosen career as a standup comedian. And finally, amongst the Wang children, is Grace, a style-smart teenager who is not quite as sure of herself as her demeanour and style blog suggest. Also available for perspectival chapters are the step-mother, Barbra, whom Charles first knew in Taiwan before he came to America, and also, perhaps oddly, the elderly Mercedes they are driving. Hijinks, some of them hilarious, ensue.Although this reads very smoothly, far moreso than might be expected of a first novel, there are a few jarring notes. For example, one chapter breaks form to become a mini-lecture on the causes of the financial collapse of 2008. Siana’s relationships with her ex-fiancé, Grayson, and her current lover, Leo, are just implausible. And their is a noticeable tone-deafness when it comes to property and its obligations. Charles longs for the vast estate he believes his family once ruled in China. But if his distain for peasants and other chattel is representative, then his family is one reason why communism would have found such fertile ground in China.Nevertheless, this is an easy read that skips along and is, at moments, pleasantly amusing. Though possibly worth the ride primarily for the spunkiness of the youngest daughter, Grace.
    • 3/5
      Funny and sad story. The characters really suffered when they lost their money and all the attributes. Some inner soul reflections were needed and happened. Not sure if the insights will last for these folks.
    • 3/5
      Decent beach read, nothing memorable.
    • 3/5
      At the heart of The Wangs vs The World is a desperate man. Charles Wang has lost everything, and now he has to tell his family about it. His family — daughters Saina and Grace and son Andrew — has never known a life where they weren’t ridiculously rich. What follows is Charles, his wife Barbra, Grace, and Andrew traveling across the country to stay with oldest daughter Saina, and the ways that each of them deal with their newfound circumstances.This was a book club pick, and I’m not sure I would have read it otherwise. Something about the description didn’t appeal to me, though I couldn’t tell you what it was now. But, I did read it! And at the end, my reaction was the same as everyone else in my book club…. a resounding “meh?”I felt a little bit lied to by the buzz ahead of this book. I really didn’t find it that funny! Sure, it had funny parts, but I felt like the dark humor side of it needed to be pushed so much further. The characters are mostly unlikable, so without that humor I couldn’t find many reasons to root for them. Maybe I was expecting more of a farce, and instead I got something a little more depressing.I wouldn’t not read another book by Jade Chang, but this one wasn’t for me.
    • 3/5
      In short, I was entertained.

      In her debut novel, Jade Chang weaves together the anxieties of the post-2008 economic recession, the sense of home (especially in immigrant families), and the bonds of family. Charles Wang, makeup mogul, loses it all and packs up the family (Ah-ma, his 2nd wife, and his younger two children after fetching them from school) to head from southern California to upstate New York where the oldest Wang child currently lives, hiding from the art world after a disastrous show.

      Some of Charles' delusional mindset kind of reminds me of Death of a Salesman's Willy Loman- Charles is bitter about how America took advantage of him after he built himself as part of the American Dream, but he also holds onto this idea that he can reclaim Wang family land that was taken from his father by the Communists. Charles himself never set foot in China but only heard about the family estate's glory days from parents and older relatives. I do think there's a fascination for children of the diaspora to wonder what could've been, but as I learned from my grandparents, there's practically a cottage industry of villages welcoming a "long-lost scion" of the family then also expecting exorbitant gifts... that, however isn't a story covered in this book, though the ending hints at that for the Wang children in the future, maybe.

      My favorite character was probably Saina, as we're both similar in age and in retreating after personal failures. Even though Charles is technically head of the family, it's Saina and Grace that really hold the Wangs together.

      Minor criticisms- I am a middle-class plebe, so while I recognize that the brands the Wangs use/reminisce about are a language unto themselves, I honestly couldn't tell you the meaning of A Bathing Ape t-shirt or Smythson notebooks other than it's above my payscale. I also see other reviewers were turned off by periodic untranslated phonetic Mandarin, but that honestly didn't bother me- it'd be realistic, and you can context-clue in much of it. While I appreciate the way [author:Kevin Kwan|634694] does it with footnotes, the untranslated way is fine too (The Expanse is a show that does this with the Belter pidgin).
    • 3/5
      Hilarious? While there were parts of this book I found amusing hilarious is not a word I would have used. I am not sure how I feel about this book. I did grow to like the characters and was interested to see what was going to happen to them but felt some of them could have been developed a bit more. I did find it annoying that some of the characters would speak in Chinese with no translation given. I felt it was an unwelcome annoyance.
    • 5/5
      I started this book during a readathon because it seemed like a fun, easy read. Cross-country family road trip high jinks!

      Here's what surprised me: I ended up having to set it to the side because I was reading it too fast. (And reading fast, for me, is part of the point of a readathon.) I kept hitting lines of unexpected loveliness and re-reading them, and finding myself wanting to sort of sit and enjoy them instead of charging ahead.

      I don't want to overhype this book because I'm sure it benefited from my relatively low expectations going in, but I really love when a book surprises me by being more than what I asked it to be. This did exactly that. It was the fun, easy read I expected, but it was also a moving, thoughtful read that took me by surprise.


      I received a copy of this ebook from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.



    • 4/5
      Chang gives us insight into her character's minds but we are also shown how the characters look at each other - these combine to weave an intricate web of complex characterizations. The family saga rings true on many levels - the inter-generational perspectives, each character's woes and the way relationships can evolve. The cultural insights are also a highlight. This is a book that makes us see into other world views, providing us a glimpse into what makes us human. It's nice to have it all packaged as a fun romp across country. The Wangs travel into our hearts.
    • 4/5
      The Wangs vs. the World is a debut novel from Jade Chang. It details the downfall of Charles Wang who had created a cosmetics empire after immigrating from Taipei."Yes, America had loved him once. She’d given him the balls to turn his father’s grim little factory, a three-smokestack affair on the outskirts of Taipei that supplied urea to fertilizer manufacturers, into a cosmetics empire. Urea. His father dealt in piss! Not even real honest piss—artificial piss. Faux pee. A nitrogen-carrying ammonia substitute that could be made out of inert materials and given a public relations scrubbing and named carbamide, but that was really nothing more than the thing that made piss less terribly pissy."In 2008, the recession and some poor expansion choices bankrupted his company; he has to let his very indulged children know their life is about to change. The youngest, Grace will have to leave boarding school, Andrew will have to leave Arizona State. The plan is to drive cross country to go live with the oldest daughter Saina, who recently bought a farmhouse in New York. The chapters alternate viewpoints of not only these three, but also the new wife, Barbara, and even the aging car. The road trip takes them through New Orleans where Andrew gets temporarily lured away from the family, thinking that he has fallen in love. Eventually they will make it to Saina, whose successful art career has also taken a bad turn. The final plan is for Charles to go back to China and reclaim the land that was taken from the family by the communist regime. That too is fraught with complications.
    • 3/5
      I’ve got mixed feelings about this story. All of the characters seems to be self-centered people. I guess money can do that to you. But I was quickly caught up in the story of the rise and fall of a Chinese immigrant in the cosmetics manufacturing business.
    • 4/5
      While I didn't love this book, I did enjoy reading it. The extremely wealthy Wangs lose everything in the 2008 recession and leave California in the old car they had given to their elderly nanny. After dropping her off at her daughter's house, they drive across country to their eldest daughter's home in New York. Parts of this novel worked very well, but it was difficult to like these characters who made a lot of foolish mistakes. However, in the end, they discover family is more important...
    • 3/5
      The premise of this book is a Chinese-American family has lost their fortune, prompting a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to a small town in upstate New York, to the one remaining daughter who at least owns a small house. Along the way, the son learns to perform stand-up comedy, the stepmother realizes she loves her husband more than his money, and the younger daughter learns responsibility. A good story, although somewhat far-fetched and less humorous than I had hoped for. Still, I appreciated the tale of a family that is both very American and very much under the thrall of their ancestral homeland.
    • 3/5
      As a Chinese American I love reading books about the Chinese immigrant experience, and if they're labeled as humorous, even better. Don't get me wrong -- I also love the heart wrenching stories about slaving away on the railroads or facing discrimination after the war. But, sometimes it's the little details about growing up in the US with Chinese parents that make me laugh out loud. Like eating spaghetti and meat balls with chopsticks or always having Peking duck for Thanksgiving -- little odd quirky details that make me smile. So I was really looking forward to this book. There was lots of advance buzz about it and it seemed like the perfect fun read for me. I have to honestly say I was a bit disappointed. I liked the little elements of humor, but just like the Wangs take a meandering trip from LA to upstate NY, this story wandered around and I couldn't tell where it was headed, or even where it had been. I didn't connect with these characters. None of them seemed like the Chinese people I know. Did they get what they wanted? Did they grow? Was the ending happy or sad? I don't know! And finally, I found it incredibly confusing the amount of dialog that was in Chinese. And I have a limited grasp of household Chinese (wake up, eat dinner, wash the dishes, etc.). How did people who are completely unfamiliar with Chinese follow this at all? Maybe I would have liked this book better if I didn't have such high expectations for it.
    • 4/5
      Read from September 06 to 11, 2016Simple: a funny family road-trip novel. Less simple: a Chinese businessman builds his empire in America only to lose everything thanks to The Great Recession and some questionable choices. We get background info and learn about the family through multiple perspectives -- the children, the wife, the car they drive. It is a book I wanted to get back to (which hasn't happened a lot lately) and one I was sad to finish.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book! Successful immigrant businessman loses everything--business, house, cars, everything--because he got cocky right as the recession hit. The family--stepmom, 16 year old daughter at boarding school, son at ASU, older daughter in NY--pulls together.A road trip, relationships, the art world, the fashion world, a too-nice guy, a girl who loves to hard, and "the land" back in China. It sounds crazy but somehow it works.
    • 3/5
      The Wangs are the typical immigrant family seeking the American dream of prosperity. After leaving China and arriving arrived in the United states, the ambitious patriarch of the family earns a substantial fortune and the family is living in one of the most exclusive communities in California until a series of poor business decisions causes the money to vanish.The book is the story of the car trip across the United States from California to New York just after the family becomes destitute. Charles (that father) is dreaming up plans to regain his former wealth and status while his second wife and children are learning who they are and what they really want from life. This is a riches to rags story that features quirky characters, unusual circumstances, and the clash of cultures that all immigrant families feel as they attempt to reconcile where they've been with who they are now. Filled with some humorous dialog and scenes, this was an enjoyable read about the resilience of the human spirit.Note: I was given a free ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
    • 1/5
      The "Wangs", contrary to some marketing descriptions, is not "outrageously funny". It's not even mildly amusing. I quit at the 50% mark; I will not finish this book. I did not like a single character, it spent most of the first half giving a lot of background that was neither interesting nor necessary. There are tons of Chinese phrases, some translated, some not. You can get away with that with many European tongues because the reader can guess the meaning given a word or two, or imagine something based of context. It is not a road story - very few descriptions of what's out there, what people are encountered. Instead, we have this very sour family that I want nothing to do with. And the plot sounded so interesting. Felt like this was a big waste of time. Very disappointing. I don't often quit on a book, and when I do I almost never write a review, holding out the possibility that even tho I won't be around for the end, maybe it will save itself in the final chapters........But I still had 200 pages to go, and I can't think of one thing I liked to this point. Life is too short, so ta-ta!