Holding Pattern: A Novel

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, VOGUE, VULTURE, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE "Exquisite and wise." New York Times 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 Kathleen Cheng has blown up her life. Shes gone through a humiliating breakup, dropped out of her graduate program, and left everything behind. Now shes back in her childhood home in Oakland, wondering whats next. To her surprise, her mother isnt 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 shed be planning her own wedding, but instead finds herself helping her mother plan hersto 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 relationshipsespecially the one with Marissa. Will they succeed in seeing each other anew, adult to adult? As they peel back the layers of their historythe old wounds, cultural barriers, and complex affectionthey must come to a new understanding of how they can propel each other forward, and what theyve 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.