I really love Yang’s writing style and I appreciate how she characterizes Ivy’s relationship with her family (that was honestly the more enjoyable part of the narrative to read), but I’m not too sure how I feel about how her and Gideon’s relationship is developed. Maybe because he’s so one-dimensional that all of their encounters just seem dull? Lol.

The twists were twisty and the turns turn-y which is always great for a novel that’s marketed as a thriller. Even though it took a while for the “thriller” aspect of the book to take off, when it did? My god was I surprised. 3.5 stars

There wasn't too much dialogue, which made the characters feel like they were non-characters which was weird until more than halfway through the book where we got just a little more dialogue, but still not enough. We hardly get to know Gideon but then again maybe that's the point?

Interesting twists at the end which actually came rather suddenly and ended far too quickly. So, I don't know, I'm just confused.

became theatrical with that ending, but other than that, a really engrossing read! the perfect protagonist that's easy to empathise with even tho she's kinda shitty too and great writing

This is a dark horse, and I like dark horses. It shows the challenges and lack of options immigrants have and flies directly in the face of the model minority examination that most fiction tends to do. Instead Ivy’s parents are shown to put immense pressure on her due to their social privilege and indoctrination of family status and values, and a premium on wealth because they don’t have the ability to accrue it, which creates the circumstances that put Ivy on a course that is, essentially, predetermined.

Luxury is not merely material goods and sustenance, though that is reiterated a lot throughout, but also the ability to choose and see a path forward, based on upbringing and station. Pivotally, when Ivy does finally put together pieces peppered throughout regarding one of the most important decisions in her life, she has become so skewed that the path forward is the same choices her family has had to made, which can really only end with continuing a trauma cycle.

But neither is the reader supposed to be overtly sympathetic with Ivy while she continues numerous condemnable actions, just understand why they are happening, even as it’s obfuscated from the character herself.

In short, it’s one of those novels where you will either enjoy watching unlikable characters unfold like train wrecks, or you won’t. In particular, her inability to perceive something so obvious about a man she ends up seeing, and the fruition of that outcome, I think really drives home the themes of the novel—but it is quite literally the very last thing that occurs, making it a very slow burn (which I don’t mind, but some may).