While worrying that her mom is plotting to move the family from their Chicago home, thirteen-year-old Alexis also wonders about the mysterious young man who seems to be shadowing her and her friend.
Erin, a non-Chinese teenager living in San Francisco's Chinatown, ghostwrites an online advice column, but when a reply to her ex-best friend backfires, Erin's carefully constructed life takes a crazy spin.
While worrying that her mom is plotting to move the family from their Chicago home, thirteen-year-old Alexis also wonders about the mysterious young man who seems to be shadowing her and her best friend.
What constitutes a good parent, and when do they go too far? We often hear stereotypes associated with strict Asian parenting, and yet, although the accreditations on paper are known to many, still we find ourselves wondering, But at what costs? Secrets of a Fortune Cookie: A Memoir describes the harrowing journey of author Vanessa Yang, a young woman of Chinese descent, who was born in Singapore and educated in schools across the globe. She experienced a traditional Asian-style upbringing, with no consideration to social development. As a strictly raised Chinese Singaporean expatriate student in international schools, she was also influenced by her friends and peersand their Western ideals. Her mothers relentless Eastern upbringing, dominated by an isolated focus on academics alone, was not a productive fit to a teenagers growing desires to fit in and find encouragement and love. These disparate experiences and lifestyles were the seeds of her vicious teen rebellion against everything her parents honored, and it was these acts of defiance that ultimately climaxed her insecurities. Satirically funny and heartrending by turns, her story of independent self-discovery brings to light, the aptly pondered detriments of the causes and consequences of stereotypical Asian-style parenting. In the end, the clash of cultures she and her sisters faced drove her to resort to drastic measures in order to find the love and confidence she never received at home. A remarkable memoir with valuable life lessons, Secrets of a Fortune Cookie offers an inspiring look at a young womans turbulent past.
Set in different cities around the world, Elaine Chiew's award-winning stories travel into the heart of the Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese diasporas to explore the lives of those torn between cultures and juggling divided selves. In the title story, four writers find their cultural bonds of friendship tested when a handsome young Asian writer joins their group. In other stories, a brother searches for his sister forced to serve as a comfort woman during World War Two; three Singaporean sisters run a French gourmet restaurant in New York; a woman raps about being a Tiger Mother in Belgravia; and a filmmaker struggles to document the lives of samsui women—Singapore's thrifty, hardworking construction workers. > Acutely observed, wry and playful, her stories are as worldly and emotionally resonant as the characters themselves. This fabulous debut collection heralds an exciting new literary voice.
Far across the continent from one another, a young man and woman were simultaneously enjoying a Chinese dinner with close acquaintances. At the end of their meal, as usual, every person at the table was handed a fortune cookie....BUT... The fortune cookie that was handed to each of them was DIFFERENT. From nowhere appeared a short, fat man wearing a colorful gown that fl owed to the fl oor. On his face were huge sunglasses that covered the single eye located in the middle of his forehead. After the two of them read their unusual fortunes, a shocking chain of events were to follow that would instantly force them together and unveil hidden secrets from the past. Together, they found it necessary to take a parlous journey across the storm-ridden United States...and back again revealing hidden mysteries from the past. They not only found love for one another but just what part in their lives the strange little one-eyed may actually played in their fortunes.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and It Ends with Us—whose writing is “emotionally wrenching and utterly original” (Sara Shepard, New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars series)—delivers a tour de force novel about a troubled marriage and the one old forgotten promise that might be able to save it. Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair. All Your Perfects is a profound novel about a damaged couple whose potential future hinges on promises made in the past. This is a heartbreaking page-turner that asks: Can a resounding love with a perfect beginning survive a lifetime between two imperfect people?
Songs - A collection of 10 short stories. The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines - A lucky weekend in Las Vegas. Hocus Pocus - A Magician uses real magic. Don't Worry About the Government - A US politician tells the truth; a Political Fantasy? Joys Of Christmas - Santa needs a minder. County Fair - Following a serious accident, a woman waits for her memory to return. P. Machinery - Political memoirs of popular deception, from the late-1990s. Medicine Show - A hair-raising story from way out west. The Happening - The truth about Area 51? Becalmed - A businessman is given an opportunity to re-assess his priorities. The Voice - A man gets more than he bargained for from his computerized home.
While worrying that her mom is plotting to move the family from their Chicago home, thirteen-year-old Alexis also wonders about the mysterious young man who seems to be shadowing her and her friend.
When Phyllis Barber’s thirty-three-year marriage ended, she had to redefine herself as a woman, a mother, and an artist. Raw Edges is her moving account of the “lean years” that followed her divorce. It is interwoven with a narrative of the marriage of two gifted people that begins with “sealing” in a Mormon temple, endures through the birth of four sons and the development of two careers, and founders when the couple’s personal needs no longer match their aspirations or the rigid strictures of Mormon life. Raw Edges reflects the predicament that many women experience as their marriages disintegrate and they fail to achieve their own expectations as well as those set by their society and their faith. It is also a story of hope, of how a woman overcome by grief and confusion eventually finds a new approach to life.