2023 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35
A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE
“There 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.” – 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. She’s gone through a humiliating breakup, dropped out of her graduate program, and left everything behind. Now she’s back in her childhood home in Oakland, wondering what’s next.
To her surprise, her mother isn’t 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 she’d be planning her own wedding, but instead finds herself helping her mother plan hers—to 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 relationships—especially the one with Marissa. Will they succeed in seeing each other anew, adult to adult?
As they peel back the layers of their history—the old wounds, cultural barriers, and complex affection—they must come to a new understanding of how they can propel each other forward, and what they’ve 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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
“There 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.” – 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. She’s gone through a humiliating breakup, dropped out of her graduate program, and left everything behind. Now she’s back in her childhood home in Oakland, wondering what’s next.
To her surprise, her mother isn’t 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 she’d be planning her own wedding, but instead finds herself helping her mother plan hers—to 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 relationships—especially the one with Marissa. Will they succeed in seeing each other anew, adult to adult?
As they peel back the layers of their history—the old wounds, cultural barriers, and complex affection—they must come to a new understanding of how they can propel each other forward, and what they’ve 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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A deeply moving novel about a young woman's search for intimacy... Every page brims with intelligence and insight." - Alexandra Chang
"A sparkling jewel of a book, lighting up all the most alienating and bizarre features of our contemporary world with its brilliant language. Jenny Xie writes about the alienation and darkness of our world with a hopeful pen, her literary genius shining through on every page and through the vivid portrayals of each character. I flew through this book and grieved its ending." - Lydia Conklin
"Tender and hilarious... Jenny Xie gives readers a complicated and refreshingly honest view of heartbreak, loneliness, and caregiving in a technocratic, consumerist world." - Jean Chen Ho
"Jenny Xie writes sentences that absolutely sparkle on the page. Holding Pattern glimmers with wit, with intelligence, with affection and chagrin - infused with compassion, good humor, and hope." - Alice McDermott
"Xie brings her expansive spirit to a healing narrative that wraps, weaves, and folds into you... There 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." - Weike Wang
"A radiant and illuminating novel that asks big questions and entertains us grandly along the way... hopeful, incisive, and exquisitely observed." - Kyle Lucia Wu
"A sparkling jewel of a book, lighting up all the most alienating and bizarre features of our contemporary world with its brilliant language. Jenny Xie writes about the alienation and darkness of our world with a hopeful pen, her literary genius shining through on every page and through the vivid portrayals of each character. I flew through this book and grieved its ending." - Lydia Conklin
"Tender and hilarious... Jenny Xie gives readers a complicated and refreshingly honest view of heartbreak, loneliness, and caregiving in a technocratic, consumerist world." - Jean Chen Ho
"Jenny Xie writes sentences that absolutely sparkle on the page. Holding Pattern glimmers with wit, with intelligence, with affection and chagrin - infused with compassion, good humor, and hope." - Alice McDermott
"Xie brings her expansive spirit to a healing narrative that wraps, weaves, and folds into you... There 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." - Weike Wang
"A radiant and illuminating novel that asks big questions and entertains us grandly along the way... hopeful, incisive, and exquisitely observed." - Kyle Lucia Wu
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