A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE
âThere is so much heart in these pages, so much wisdom on how we love. This book had me in its orbit, from beginning to end.â â Weike Wang, author of Joan is Okay
Holding Pattern. Noun.
1. A state of suspended progress.
2. The awkward way your mother tries to hug you now that you live with her. Again.
Kathleen Cheng has blown up her life. Sheâs gone through a humiliating breakup, dropped out of her graduate program, and left everything behind. Now sheâs back in her childhood home in Oakland, wondering whatâs next.
To her surprise, her mother isnât the same person Kathleen remembers. No longer depressed or desperate to return to China, the new Marissa Cheng is sporty, perky, and has been transformed by love. Kathleen thought sheâd be planning her own wedding, but instead finds herself helping her mother plan hersâto a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur.
Grasping for direction, Kathleen takes a job at a start-up that specializes in an unconventional form of therapy based on touch. While she negotiates new ideas about intimacy and connection, an unforeseen attachment to someone at work pushes her to rethink her relationshipsâespecially the one with Marissa. Will they succeed in seeing each other anew, adult to adult?
As they peel back the layers of their historyâthe old wounds, cultural barriers, and complex affectionâthey must come to a new understanding of how they can propel each other forward, and what theyâve done to hold each other back. Brilliantly observant, tender, and warm, Holding Pattern is a hopeful novel about immigration and belonging, mother-daughter relationships, and the many ways we learn to hold each other.
A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE
âThere is so much heart in these pages, so much wisdom on how we love. This book had me in its orbit, from beginning to end.â â Weike Wang, author of Joan is Okay
Holding Pattern. Noun.
1. A state of suspended progress.
2. The awkward way your mot...