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.
New York Times Editors' Choice
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction Finalist
Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award
Selected as A Best Book of 2016 by:
NPR - BuzzFeed - PopSugar - Refinery29 - Electric Literature - Self
- Elle "A fresh Little Miss Sunshine." -- Sloane Crosley, in Vanity
Fair "Bright and funny...when the Wangs take the world, we all
benefit."--USA Today "Richly entertaining . . . Chang's smart and
engaging novel remains defiantly cheerful. Perhaps this is because
its ultimate subject, across a colorful span of geographies and
cultural settings, is love."--The Guardian "Jade Chang is
unendingly clever in her generous debut novel....As much as THE
WANGS VS. THE WORLD is about Asian-American identity, it is also a
sprawling family adventure compressed into a road trip novel. The
result is a manic, consistently funny book of alternating
perspectives as the Wangs make various cross-country stopovers in
their 80s station wagon...[A] compassionate and bright-eyed novel."
--New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)"Sharply funny."--New
York Times "Fresh, energetic, and completely hilarious, The Wangs
vs. the World is my favorite debut of the year." -- Jami Attenberg,
author of Saint Mazie and The Middlesteins "A moneyed
Chinese-immigrant clan loses it all, then takes a healing,
uproarious road trip across the United States." --Entertainment
Weekly "With mischievous, Dickensian glee, Chang's prose
power-drives the appealingly dysfunctional family, now a disgrace
to the wet dream of capitalism, through their postfall paces . . .
Chang's confident, broad-stroke, and go-for-broke style makes her
fresh twist on the American immigrant saga of the woebegone Wangs
one of 2016's must-reads . . . You will laugh your ass off while
learning a thing or two about buying into, and then having to bail
on, the American dream. But mostly, you'll get to savor, thanks to
a wildly innovative plot twist, the I Chang of this diabolical
dramedy: how it's love, not money, that really makes the world, and
all the people in it, go round."--Elle "It all comes crashing down
for Charles Wang, so he and his family hit the road. This endearing
debut is more fun than you'd expect from a trip with this
backdrop."--Marie Claire "On the brink of financial ruin, Charles
Wang has a plan to start over in his homeland of China. But first,
he has to reunite the fam via a madcap, cross-country road trip
from their palatial Bel Air digs."--Cosmopolitan "a highly
entertaining debut novel . . . A meditation on what it means to be
an immigrant in America, The Wangs vs. the World shows the often
surprising ways hardship can bring a dysfunctional family closer
together." --BuzzFeed "[Chang's] book is unrelentingly fun, but
it's also raw and profane -- a story of fierce pride, fierce anger,
and even fiercer love....The Wangs vs. the World drives home the
fact that there is no one immigrant experience -- just humanity in
all its glorious, sloppy complexity, doing its best to survive and
thrive despite the whims of society and circumstance. With plenty
of laughs, both bitter and sweet, along the way."--NPR.org "One of
the best debut novels of 2016, this warmhearted, wide-ranging novel
tells the wholly modern story of the Wang family: Father Charles
has had his fortune decimated by the financial crisis, so he wants
to corral his family, return to China, and start all over. But
first, everyone--Charles, his wife, and their three children--has
to sort out the tangles of their lives." --Estelle Tang on Elle.com
"Chang is a former journalist, but her debut novel has already been
praised by the wonderful Jami Attenberg, so you know it's going to
be good. The book deals with the trials and triumphs of a
Chinese-American immigrant family who made it big and then lost it
all. and then decided to take a road trip. It's poignant,
hilarious, and a truly noteworthy debut." --Nylon.com "Chang proves
a family doesn't need to be dysfunctional to be interesting, that
genuine and fervent love among family members will make you root
for their successes even more. I couldn't get enough of the Wangs.
The book is done but I miss them like old friends."--BuzzFeed "The
Wangs had it all: a cosmetics empire and a huge fortune, but the
financial crisis ruined all that. Now Charles Wang is taking his
family on a road trip across America so that he can get his
children safely stowed away and start his life anew in China. The
Wangs vs. the World is a funny and touching novel about what it
means to belong in America." --PopSugar "Jade Chang's firecracker
of a debut knowingly and refreshingly breaks every unwritten rule
of the Asian-American family saga, making for a blistering,
high-energy read that's worthy of its pre-publication
hype."--Newsday "Meet the Wangs: a wealthy, Chinese-American family
who lose everything in the 2008 financial crisis. In Chang's
big-hearted, hilarious debut, they leave their foreclosed Bel Air
home and head out on a cross-country road trip in a desperate
attempt to start over and save face."--PureWow "A funny and
heartwarming debut novel by writer Jade Chang, The Wangs vs. the
World tells the story of one immigrant family -- the Wangs -- who
achieved the ultimate American dream, only to have it snatched away
from them entirely by the financial crisis. Gone with their dreams
is also their family unity, and all Charles Wang--the head of this
fractured family -- wants to do is return to China and begin anew.
But first he must take an epic road trip across the United States,
from California to New York, that will force him to not only look
at America, but at his American dreams (and family) in a new (and
even better) light."--Bustle "Hilarious."--Bust "Art, stand-up
comedy, beauty, style blogs and financial ruin come together in a
road trip from Bel-Air to upstate New York. Running away has never
been so entertaining."--Fort Worth Star Telegram "I love The Wangs
vs The World so, so much. If you're looking for something that you
won't be able to put down, definitely pick this one up...it might
be my favorite debut of the year. It just kind of rings all the
bells for me: it's smart, the writing is great, the story is really
interesting, the characters are funny, it doesn't take itself too
seriously but it's about a serious thing. I just really, really
loved it."--Rebecca Schinsky, BookRiot "A funny, feeling novel
about an immigrant family (and its patriarch) who must choose
between old and new, a clean slate and solidarity."--Brooklyn
Magazine "Funny, brash, honest, full of wit and heart and smarts.
This is a novel I wish I could write, have been dying to read, and
hope everyone else reads, too."--Charles Yu, author of Sorry Please
Thank You and How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
"Jade Chang's debut novel is a heartbreaking, hilarious, and honest
American epic: a road trip that's an ultimate escape from our
parents' American dream, toward an unknown destination that's both
more vulnerable and more hopeful."--J. Ryan Stradal, author of
Kitchens of the Great Midwest "After losing his mega-fortune earned
from a cosmetics empire, Charles Wang uproots his wife and his two
California-born-and-raised kids from their Bel Air mansion. The
Wangs drive across the country to move in with the oldest daughter
of the clan, escaping a bad Manhattan breakup in a remote Catskills
house. While the destination is intriguing, it's the road trip
antics that will keep you laughing as you ride the rails with this
hilarious debut novel."--A.M. New York "In just one novel, with the
Wangs barreling down I-10 East to wherever life begins again for
them, Chang has established a delightful, lasting relationship with
readers. Wherever she goes next will be worth following." - Rory
Aronsky, BookBrowse.com "This debut novel is so funny and so wise
and so sad about the collapse of the American Dream from the
vantage point of a wealthy Chinese-American family, who expected
and got everything they wanted -- until they didn't. Plus it's a
hell of a road trip novel, as the Wangs, shellshocked by
bankruptcy, have to find their way back to some inner understanding
of one another. I adored this book and look forward to reading it
again and to Chang's next fiction adventures."--Sarah Weinman,
TheCrimeLady "The Wangs vs. the World is one of the most thrilling,
skilfully wrought novels I've read in ages....The Wangs were so
real to me that I keep expecting them to turn up at my door. I'll
be ready with my bags if they do."--Emma Jane Unsworth, author of
Animals "In Chang's sparkling debut novel, a family whose fortune
has been lost in the 2008 financial crisis takes a cross-country
road trip in an effort to regroup . . . Chang's charming and quirky
characters and comic observations make the novel a jaunty joy ride
to remember."--STARRED, Publishers Weekly "A wealthy Chinese
immigrant family finds their fortunes dashed and their future in
question--with surprisingly hilarious results--in this rollicking
debut novel."--BookPage "A Chinese-American family tumbles from
riches to rags in Chang's jam-packed, high-energy debut . . .
Switching among the points of view of all the Wangs and several
supporting players, racing back and forth in time and across the
country and the world, dropping into Chinese, stuffing in stand-up
routines and savvy details on finance, journalism, the beauty
industry, and the art world, this debut novelist holds nothing
back. Head-spinning fun"--Kirkus Reviews "Charming . . . Fans of
sweeping family sagas will be rewarded."--Library Journal "readers
with a taste for outsize family dysfunction, à la Cynthia D'Aprix
Sweeney's The Nest (2016) and Emma Straub's The Vacationers (2014),
will whip through this one with smiles on their faces." --Booklist
One of Entertainment Weekly's Most Anticipated Titles of 2016
A BuzzFeed Incredible Book for Fall
An Elle.com Must-Read Book for Fall
A Bustle Book for Your Fall TBR list
A Hollywood Reporter Most Buzzed About Book for Fall
A PopSugar Best Book for Fall
A The Millions Most Anticipated Book
A Nylon Amazing Book for Fall
A The Frisky Book to Read for Fall
A Fall 2016 Barnes & Noble Discover Pick
An October Indie Next Pick
A Publishers Lunch Fall 16 Buzz Book
An iBooks Most Anticipated Book for Fall
A BookRiot Book to Read This Fall
One of Library Journal's "Five Big Debuts" for Fall 16
A BookPage "Woman to Watch" for 2016
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