Looking for your next read? Welcome to Bazaar Book Chat, an inside look at our editors’ Slack channel, where we candidly review the latest literary releases.
Rosa Sanchez (senior news editor)
Hey @here! Welcome to another edition of Bazaar Book Chat! This May, we read Real Americans by Rachel Khong. The book follows members of a family through different stages of their lives, spotlighting each narrator’s raison d’être and how that plays into the complex relationships they develop with their family members and loved ones, ultimately leaving them with different forms of resentment, trauma, and regret—though also, in some cases, unconditional love.
First thoughts?
Joel Calfee (editorial and social media assistant)
I thought this book was sooo good! I was hooked from the first page, and I feel like it moved at a breakneck pace. There’s nothing I love like a book that explores family dynamics/romantic relationships, and I thought this one did both very well.
Ariana Marsh (senior features editor)
What I love about this book is that, through seeing through a number of different interwoven perspectives, you understand why everyone made the choices they did, even if they hurt others. Pretty much all of the main characters have been hurt by one another in some way, but allowing you to get inside of everyone’s minds helps show you their true intentions behind their actions, which were never to cause upset or harm.
It’s a beautiful intergenerational portrait of a family that’s been torn apart by various factors—but everyone was just trying to survive.
❗️2
Rosa Sanchez
I totally agree. Khong made such a beautiful web out of these intertwining storylines between family members, and in the end, even if I didn’t find myself sympathizing with all the characters, I feel like I let out a big sigh—like, what was meant to happen, did.
💯2
Ariana Marsh
Totally. It’s a really nice reminder that even if you don’t understand other people’s choices, they made them for (hopefully) good and well-intentioned reasons.
Joel Calfee
Was there a perspective that you guys liked best? (For those who haven’t read it yet: The book is broken into three different parts, from the perspective of a mom, son, and grandmother.)
Ariana Marsh
I loved learning about Mei’s history. Learning her story broke everything wide open, and you build so much compassion for her via learning her past. Also, the science element of her story and the book at large were so interesting.
Rosa Sanchez
Mei/May’s was super telling, but it was Lily’s that captured me immediately. I couldn’t wait to find out how her and Matthew’s love story would play out. From the start, with all the talk about their different economic realities and cultural backgrounds—and how much it continued to bother her that they were there—Lily gave us clues that the relationship wouldn’t end well, but I would have never expected what came next, and how the rest of the characters would come together.
❤️2
Ariana Marsh
And added another layer to questions surrounding identity and genetic ethics.
🔥2
I did LOVE the romance between Lily and Matthew at first.
Joel Calfee
May’s was the most surprising to me, but I think I liked Lily’s the best too! That romance was so good.
Rosa Sanchez
I know we eventually piece together a conclusion to Lily and Matthew’s love story—through what their relatives tell us—but I still wish I had gotten Lily’s perspective on that one last time. She left us on a cliffhanger, and I never recovered.
Joel Calfee
Don’t we all wanna meet the rich heir to a dynasty who doesn’t want to associate with his family but will still fly us to Paris?
🥹2
Ariana Marsh
It had all the makings of a beach-read romance novel at first.
👙2
Rosa Sanchez
With May, though. The genetics talk was truly wild. Her messy relationships also made me think a lot about the guilt we carry—like when May’s dying wish is to be reunited with her daughter. Did this make you reflect on your own life at all? Or just about the complexities of being human?
Ariana Marsh
I think it put into sharp relief how lucky I am to have never had to choose between love and a successful or safe or free future. She chose her own life over love, and as hard of a pill as that is to swallow, I respect that choice—I don’t know what I’d choose!
❗️2
Rosa Sanchez
Agreed. She was a survivor! And even though she carried so much regret in the end, she never regretted choosing her American dream.
❗️1 💯1
Ariana Marsh
How did you guys feel when you figured out who Charles was in relation to her past?
Rosa Sanchez
Sad! He gave me the ick for her, knowing she was never truly happy.
Ariana Marsh
Same. But once again, money won there 🙄.
❗️2
Rosa Sanchez
It also says so much about privilege. She didn’t have the privilege to choose happiness and love, but she hoped her daughter would, so she sacrificed her own life for it. And each generation is more and more privileged—like Lily, and then Nick.
Ariana Marsh
Exactly. Totally agree.
Joel Calfee
Speaking of money, the whole time I was reading the book I noticed how much it talked about time, and one of my favorite quotes is when Khong writes, “They want to own time,” in reference to the Meir family. I feel like it perfectly captures a lot of the class dynamics happening in this book, and how wealthy people have more access to things that make their lives feel longer (and sometimes actually last longer).
Ariana Marsh
Ooh yes, like how Nick’s boss drinks that elixir to prolong his life.
Rosa Sanchez
OMG, yeah.
Ariana Marsh
But in the end Nick, May, and Lily did kind of own time and had the greatest gift of all.
❤️2
Rosa Sanchez
I love that. Also the time theme made me think like how May, Lily, and Nick each felt alone in their ability to freeze time, not knowing they had that in common until it was too late.
Joel Calfee
YES! I loved the freezing time motif.
Ariana Marsh
I wonder if they could freeze time together and live in a little bubble.
💕1
Rosa Sanchez
😭
Ariana Marsh
Maybe when Lily enters the room at the end that happens and they get to make up for lost time. A reader can dream!
Rosa Sanchez
OMG, I almost cried. I was like, That’s it???! Gimme more!
❗️1
Joel Calfee
That ending was just written in invisible ink! I’ll believe that.
❤️1
Rosa Sanchez
Moving to Nick’s storyline, I think it brought up so many issues of race. He was blond like his father—looked nothing like his Chinese mother—and was aware that that quality gave him a level of privilege. And then how some of the characters’ whole purpose in life was to alter genes to allegedly benefit people—something which can quickly turn very racist. I thought it was interesting that while we do see May and Otto as kind of the ones who ruined things for the family by pulling strings to change their kids’ futures, Lily does the same with Nick when she decides to keep him from his father, and it’s really Nick, in the end, who finally breaks that controlling cycle.
🔥1
Ariana Marsh
Makes me think of the whole idea that parents will inevitably mess their kids up in some way, even if they think they’re doing what’s best.
🫠2
Ariana Marsh
Random, but did you guys notice how many times oysters were mentioned?
Rosa Sanchez
Yes! It’s giving wealth!
❗️1
Ariana Marsh
Totally, in many different ways!
Joel Calfee
On the matter of race, I was really struck by how Lily spent her whole life removed from Chinese culture, but then when Nick is born, there’s that moment where she sees her mom speaking in Mandarin for the first time, and then her mom starts making her Chinese dishes, etc. What do you guys think the symbolism of that was?
Ariana Marsh
The shared experience of birth and motherhood might have been a way for Lily to connect with her mother. I also wonder whether Nick looking so much like his father made Lily want to try and incorporate traditions, etc., that she could see herself and her family in.
❗️2
Rosa Sanchez
I feel like also as an immigrant, you sometimes force yourself to blend in and tell yourself you won’t be like your parents, but then it creeps up on you, everything they taught you, and you become versions of them when it counts.
❤️2
Also that, Ariana, when Nick said he felt like he knew his father because they looked so similar, even though he had known his mother his entire life? So powerful.
🔥2
Like, admitting that you identify more with people who look like you even if you don’t mean to.
💔1
Joel Calfee
Also that scene where Lily gives birth to him and she’s like, “This is the wrong baby,” because he looks nothing like her. You can kind of see it going both ways.
❗️1
Rosa Sanchez
Definitely! Okay, last question. In the end, the author tells us this was a story about fortune. Did you think any of the characters were truly fortunate, or did they lose their way in seeking fortune—the American dream—for themselves and their kids?
Joel Calfee
I feel like Khong’s trying to tell us that fortune can mean many different things and it depends on what you choose to value, and sometimes we make the wrong choice. Whether I think any of the characters were fortunate is hard to say, because they find luck and success in certain ways, but then fail in others.
❤️2
Rosa Sanchez
I think they were each fortunate in different ways. May got her ultimate dream, even though it cost her smaller dreams. Lily got Nick, who ended up being the actual love of her life. And Nick got answers.
❤️2
Ariana Marsh
I think fortune looks different for everybody—it’s so subjective and situational. I think each character had both good and bad fortune, some of it inherited, some of it created. But as we see with Matthew, being fortunate financially can also lead to bad fortune surrounding relationships, autonomy, etc.
❤️2❗️1
Joel Calfee
Jinx!
❤️2
Our Bazaar Book Chat pick for June is The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. Pick up your copy of the book here, and read along with us.
