The Wangs vs. the World

The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The poor Wangs. Everything goes wrong for them. Charles Wang has just lost everything, (Everything) in a bankruptcy and that is just the beginning of troubles for him and his family. Unfortunately, failure can be as boring as success. As we watch the Wangs sink deeper and deeper, and then come to epiphanies, I could muster little sympathy or empathy.

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Artifice, thought Charles, was the real honesty.

 But one move to America and Charles Wang’s proud surname became a nasally joke of a word; one move and he went from king to cock.

Still on the ridge: Charles, saved by his sartoriphilia.

Just looking at a dollar bill did nothing to the emotions—you have to make money or lose money for it to make you feel anything. You can earn it, win it, lose it, save it, spend it, find it, but you can’t sell it because you never really own it.

She had never really seen the point of the desert. It was a useless landscape, more a failure of evolution than a valid ecosystem. Scorpions and cacti, leftovers from Mother Nature’s rebellious phase; shouldn’t She have gotten past all that by now?

Women were ruled by emotion; men by passion.

 Gastropatrimony

The people of the world could be divided into two groups: those who used all of their chances, and those who stood still through opportunity after opportunity, waiting for a moment that would never be perfect.