Taipei Story by Rebecca F. Kuang review – A beautiful story about people, language, belonging, and so much more

Taipei Story by Rebecca F. Kuang: The review

I’ll preface this review by admitting the terrible: this book was only put on my radar thanks to its gorgeous sprayed edge. Yes, I’m one of those people who judges a book on its cover (or, more aptly, its spredge) and sometimes I buy a book just because it’s beautiful. But I’m so glad that Taipei Story was put on my radar, because I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this, and it’s made me crave stepping outside of my comfort zone of crime and thrillers a little more.

It’s my first time reading anything by Rebecca F. Kuang (or R.F. Kuang, as she often writes under). Despite hearing so much about Babel, Katabasis and Yellowface, I haven’t picked any of them up in fear that they wouldn’t be for me. But I’ve loved Kuang’s writing style in Taipei Story, and so those three books in particular have been pushed up my TBR. In fact, the day after finishing, I went out to Waterstone’s to buy myself a copy of Katabasis, and I’m looking forward to jumping into it.

Taipei Story does strike me as being much more accessible than Babel and Katabasis at least. It’s the story of Lily, an American born to Chinese parents. She’s been brought up stuck between two worlds: being immersed in American culture, she’s always felt separated from her parent’s heritage, and while she can speak and understand Chinese to a basic level, it’s always put a boundary between her and her grandparents, family she longs to feel closer to.

She spends a summer on a prestigious Chinese program in Taipei, throwing herself fully into the language and the culture with the steadfast goal of coming away being much more fluent at Chinese. She loves the way waiters look at her when she can order her meal in Chinese, but hates the way they look at her when she gets it wrong. She strives to be better, and this course is going to do that for her.

Kuang makes no apology for immersing the reader in Chinese language and culture just as much as Lily is. I listened to the first half of Taipei Story on audio and read the second half, and I’m so glad I experienced both. The book is absolutely littered with Chinese words, idioms and sayings, and reading these yourself versus hearing them is a very different experience for someone with no prior knowledge of Chinese.

It’s a study of words, of meaning, of understanding, and the way Kuang plays around with language throughout the book is captivating.

Taipei Story is about learning languages, then, but it’s much more than that. It’s about finding yourself, discovering who you are and what’s important to you, and figuring out where on earth you belong in the world. It surprised me at how personal and emotional this story was, and I feel that any young adult will find the themes useful here.

While I could not connect with Lily on her culture and upbringing, I very much empathised with her on her quest to try and find out where she belongs. The relationships she forges throughout the book will likely resemble relationships we made in our own youth. Her feelings will be familiar to anyone who’s ever been homesick, who has ever felt far away from family.

I get the feeling that Taipei Story wasn’t written for me, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love it any less. It felt like getting a glimpse into another world, another culture. It’s also, at times, a love letter to the city of Taipei itself, occasionally feeling like a travelogue, with Kuang somehow expertly inciting a feeling of wanderlust through Lily’s own exploration.

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If you want to read more about Taipei Story, I strongly recommend you go read my wonderful friend Claire’s review and personal account of reading the book. As someone who did spend a significant part of her childhood in Taiwan and who studies Chinese in her spare time, this is a story that resonated with her more strongly than anything else she’s ever read, and her account is just beautiful. It also allowed me to appreciate the book on another level and feel connected to a part of my friend’s life I’d never otherwise understand.