This is really excellent — I read a comp that suggested this is for readers of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, but I think Pachinko is a more accurate comp for me. It has a similar grandly-sweeping time span, with deep and devastating insights about history and humanity through the lens of more closely personal and interpersonal moments.

I struggled a bit with the back third — the pacing of it overall and the use of the second person made it slower for me, and somehow it felt more practical: it landed more like the way the book needed to wrap up structurally than what needed to take place by emotional necessity. Ultimately it didn’t hit as deeply and personally as I wished, though as I said it’s totally excellent; I longed for more catharsis, more emotional outpouring perhaps, but that is also not the affect of the book or of the storytellers inside it.

Definitely recommend — I am curious about Goodbye, Vitamin now, though it make take me a while to get to Khong’s backlist. I’ll for sure take note of her future novels, if not immediately dive into them.

This was a fun read. So much of the book's summary spoke to me, a second-gen Chinese-American whose scientist parents were affected by the Cultural Revolution, so I was excited to dive in.

While the circumstances of Matthew and Lily meeting independently of their parents seemed farfetched, the book does a good job of depicting generational trauma and the ethics of science. It's grand in its ambition, but there were a couple dangling threads that felt unaddressed, like the opposite of Chekhov's gun. As much as I love magical realism, I found the use of stopping time to be so extraneous to the book. It didn't advance or add to the plot or character development in a way that I found to be critical; it could have not been a thing and the book would still maintain its sturdiness, imo! Same with the message that Ping gave to Lily to pass onto Mei/May. Or the entire relationship of Nick and Miranda.

To Rachel Khong's credit, the extraneous parts didn't feel extraneous as I was reading them; she's a very compelling and gripping writer, but it wasn't until I had finished the novel and was trying to piece together my thoughts that I realized that there was a lot in this book. Kind of like when you eat a really good meal and it's not until an hour later when you realize that you feel a little bloated.

The novel could have been tightened up and streamlined a little more without shedding its substance, but all in all, I found this an enjoyable read.