Jane Lo’s debut novel All I Ever Wanted is a heartfelt Hong Kong love story. She writes with lyrical precision and finely observed emotions of the private lives of ordinary people with candor, wit and vision. They’re your neighbors, your classmates, your colleagues and friends, all the men and women who daily rush through the streets of the city. Whose lives can too often be swallowed up by the challenges of survival for those who dare to dream. Norah and Ben are the quintessential young Hong Kong couple: they live with his single mother in the flat she raised him in with little privacy; Norah juggles part time work as an ESL language teacher while mothering their baby boy who has seriously itchy skin under the critical eye of her tough-as-steel nai nai; Ben works hard as a commercial photographer to support his family, and still give half his salary to his mother like a good filial son, but is afraid he doesn’t “deserve” his university-and-international-school educated wife with parents in Vancouver, he being just a smart local boy who only wants to do the right thing. They’re seriously stressed out, but seriously in love. Will they succeed or will the pressures of the city ultimately be too much to bear? Read this delightful novel slowly to savor all the lovely details Lo captures of a city that harbors so many disappointments and dreams. This is truly a delightful debut and we look forward to more from this talented new writer.
Xu Xi, author of Monkey in Residence and Other Speculations
Jane Lo is a wonderful writer, and she has created some vivid and endearing characters in her new book All I Ever Wanted.
A.J. Jacobs, author of The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life
Lo's novel expertly examines the collision between tradition and modernity, familial duty and romance, in a thoroughly enjoyable novel. It recalls such novels as Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap in its ability to reveal the deep motivations of people via the quotidian events that define our lives.
Patrick Holland, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University and author of The Mary Smokes Boys
Jane Lo has written the book many of us wish we'd had years ago, no matter our culture or background. Even better, her book comes with an endearing Hong Kong backdrop that shows the beauty and struggles of people who believe that love truly conquers all.
Susan Blumberg-Kason, author of Good Chinese Wife
All I Ever Wanted is an engaging novel about the challenges of new marriage and parenting across cultural divides. Its many local references will enlighten newcomers to Hong Kong and delight natives with its mentions of familiar places and the fissures between generations, social classes, languages, and backgrounds. Ultimately, readers will learn that familial love is never simple and that a Chinese mother-in-law can be a formidable opponent when an only son and grandson are at stake.
Heather Diamond, author of Rabbit in the Moon
All I Ever Wanted explores the rich territory of parenthood -- the illness of children, the social isolation, and the struggle with mother in laws -- set against the backdrop of Hong Kong. It's quietly beautiful and deserves your attention.
John Matthew Fox, author of The Linchpin Writer
All I Ever Wanted is a rare and genuine depiction of early parenthood. There is joy and tenderness here, as well as anxiety-inducing in-laws, health issues, and the pressure of earning one's keep in a major city. After reading it I found myself missing the characters that inhabit this novel, I re-read passages of it, just to spend more time with them.
Caitlin Thomson, author of Incident Reports
In All I Ever Wanted, Lo folds faces of doubt into small red envelopes and turns them into luck. If love can be a mother or a partner, can it also be the self? How much of our language is our own, and which parts have we learned in order to not become swallowed up by the world's terrifying silence? Whether in Hong Kong waiting rooms, cabs or classrooms or childhood homes, Lo is there to soothe our flaking, reddened skin with her truth — that we belong somewhere much more beautiful than the hells we once imagined.
Daisuke Shen, author of Funeral
A poignant, incisive exploration of motherhood, family, and the challenges of navigating a marriage that spans class and cultural differences. This thoughtful, moving novel poses a universal question: what happens when you get all you ever wanted, yet realize that to keep it, you'll have to find the courage to make choices you never dreamed of?
Emily Colin, New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Thief