The premise of this book is quite well known and caused quite a stir worldwide at the time of publishing.

At first this looks like a parenting book: Amy Chau also presents some statistics on the relationship between parenting styles to success markers (these being academic performance, career and financial success). Quickly it becomes a cold, hot, and slightly manic story about Amy's own experiences of being parented, and how this has been factored into their own plans and desires for parenthood. It should be said that this is a satire memoir, first and foremost.

There were many outrageous anecdotes about placing both daughters competitvely against each other, 'encouragements', rewards and punishments, and so forth. Amy uses these as reflection points between Chinese and Western (she also acknowledged the term western is very vast and only uses this to contrast the main surface level differences) parenting styles to much humour.

Some fascinating points:
- the perception of filal piety on parenting and childhood.
- parents know and understand best, overriding interests and emotions.
-For the sake of the outcome, the process is worthwhile.
- compliance with authority is one of the upmost important points to learn

This point also landed with me and my experiences:
- parents are building up your skills for the future, so by arming them with skills and knowledge; this inner confidence can never be taken away.

Throughout the book, Amy has met each challenge head on. She is regularly challenged by her children, husband, family, friends, education and the western system. This is incredibly lonely; in fact her own affirming allies are global majority educators and parents who seem to understand her drive and passion.

At the end, both of her daughters reflected on their childhood and actually feel grateful that Amy pushed them to excel, curb their impulses and be confident in themselves.