Win Me Something

September 6, 2021
Wu’s compassionate debut traces one woman’s search for belonging via her memories of growing up in two households. Willa Chen’s upbringing and biracial identity left her feeling caught between worlds. Her parents’ divorce when she was young meant splitting her time between her white mother’s house in New Jersey and her Chinese American father’s in Upstate New York. Both of her parents’ second families—her white stepfather and half brother, and her white stepmother and two mixed-race half sisters—never seem to have room for Willa. At 24, she takes a job as a nanny for an upper-class white family, the Adriens, in New York City. The job becomes a live-in situation, and Willa grows closer to the daughter, Bijou, and the parents, particularly mother Nathalie. As her relationship with the family deepens, Willa confronts memories of her own childhood, and when one of her half sisters moves to the city for college, she hopes to make a connection. Through the characters’ kinships—some familial, some chosen—Wu brilliantly lays out the complicated dynamics of love, belonging, and care that exist within all relationships. Fans of Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age will love this. Agent: Monika Woods, Triangle House.

October 1, 2021
With a Chinese immigrant father and a white mother, Willa Chen examines her new adulthood as an untethered millennial. "If you're undercared for, but essentially fine, what do you do with all that hurt, the kind that runs through your tendons and tugs on your muscles, but doesn't show up on your skin?" Her parents divorced early and moved on to new families, leaving Willa to shuttle in-between, never fitting into either. At 24, she's become the nanny to nine-year-old Bijou, the precocious only child of wealthy white parents, a family so different from her disjointed own. Living in their Tribeca floor-through apartment, Willa quickly adapts to a privileged-adjacent lifestyle but remains well aware that she's an outsider; racist microaggressions never quite cease. Debuting novelist Wu, already recognized with fellowships, residencies, and teaching appointments, crafts impressive, insightful prose: "I didn't hate him. I didn't know I could," "my senses are covered in tulle, dramatic and scratchy," "She was still unfinished--new enough to be kind." Though of interest, her novel doesn't quite reach the same lofty level, ultimately proving more self-indulgent than self-aware.

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December 1, 2021

Willa has never felt like she fit in, especially after her parents remarried and had children with their new spouses. Her alienation is further complicated by her biracial identity. She lives primarily with her white mother, who is clueless about the racism Willa deals with, but she still feels as if she isn't Chinese enough in Asian spaces. This has translated into a fear of being noticed or voicing her own desires in case she is rejected. In her mid-20s, floundering after college, Willa takes a job as a live-in nanny for the Adriens, a rich family in New York City's Tribeca. Over the course of a school year, as she integrates into their life, she mistakes her sense of being professionally needed for a sense of personal belonging. Told in short chapters with occasional flashbacks to childhood, Willa's first-person narration is infused with the unbearable ache of loneliness. This gorgeously written quiet and evocative character study subtly looks at family, belonging, race, and class as Willa tries to find a professional and personal place for herself. VERDICT A superb book, but with the majority of the time line focused on Willa's adulthood, it will not hold broad teen appeal.-Jennifer Rothschild, Arlington Cty. P.L., VA

Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2021
A young woman spends 10 months working as a nanny for a wealthy Tribeca family in Wu's quietly impressive coming-into-adulthood novel. While working as a waitress in Brooklyn, 24-year-old Willa Chen jumps at an offer to become a nanny for Nathalie and Gabe Adrien's 9-year-old daughter, Bijou. The easy hours and live-in suite are appealing, but Willa is mostly thrilled at the prospect of being part of an average American family. Willa's parents divorced when she was small; her father, who'd emigrated from China at age 10, and her working-class White American mother both began new families, leaving Willa feeling extraneous. She's also experienced multiple instances of racism, whether mean-spirited or unintentional, and she's trained herself to stay emotionally reserved and inconspicuous. The Adriens, especially Nathalie, seem to embody everything Willa's own childhood lacked, while precocious Bijou is given the parental attention Willa craved. Willa tries to embed herself into the Adriens' world, finding their castoffs "irresistible," catering to Bijou's every need, considering herself and Bijou "like sisters, maybe," even developing an ambivalent flirtation with Nathalie's younger brother. Observing the Adrien household also prompts Willa to recall events from her own childhood with new clarity. Wu's debut eschews many of the tropes of current fiction, particularly nanny fiction. Do not expect sexual or physical abuse, quirky characters, weird secrets, or biting tweet-ready wit; do not expect shocking plot twists or an expos� of evil parents or bosses. The Adriens are privileged New York liberals, imperfect but far from despicable; Willa's parents made big mistakes but they loved her. And Bijou is a heartbreakingly complex child with anxieties that adults, including Willa, don't always notice. Ultimately, expect subtle surprises as Willa's relationships evolve in a satisfying accumulation of carefully drawn small moments that build toward her understanding, even acceptance, of both an imperfect world and herself. No fireworks here, but everyday struggles rendered into a deeply poignant story.

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