REVIEWS AND PRAISE
“After her magazine career craters, Isabelle Lee, the narrator of Mah’s super sharp debut, leaves New York to reconnect with her family roots in China. Her familiarity with the language and culture limited to “kitchen Chinese,” isabelle lands a job at a magazine for the expatriate community in Beijing and finds a circle of friends. However, her relationship with her big-hot attorney sister, Claire, who’s lived in China for a while, gets off to a rocky start, with the two not knowing quite what to make of each other. Isabelle’s Beijing immersion, couple with her chick lit arc, provides a refreshing and fun narrative, helped along by a fantastic heroine whose insights into modern China and the expatriate experience will intrigue readers. It’s a great start for a writer with much promise.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This novel by a California writer is about a Chinese American woman’s experiences in China. It has travel, culture shock, love and, especially, Chinese food in detail, which I always yearn to learn more about, especially because I have a Chinese daughter-in-law who’s a great cook. And it has some recipes!”
–Diane Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
“It’s life as ‘a banana,’ as Mah calls it: ‘yellow on the outside, white on the inside.'”
—New York Post, “Required Reading” column
“[Mah] paints a poignant picture of a girl who looks Chinese but is American at heart and her attempts to fit in, and find love (which she does).”
—Straits Times
“The vibrant depiction of Beijing, lush descriptions of sumptuous Chinese meals, and Isabelle’s struggle with how others perceive her distinguish Mah’s first novel.”
—Booklist
“Splendid… warm and humorous. Four-and-a-half stars.”
—Romantic Times
“A lighthearted romp about rediscovering one’s roots through food, the most universal of languages.”
—Inland Empire Weekly
“Ann Mah’s sizzling portrait of life in Beijing serves up more than just scrumptious banquets, identity crises and fraught, intercultural romances. It’s a story of how people find and nourish ourselves in unexpected ways and places, so delicious that I took breaks from reading only to dash to the phone and order Chinese.”
—Rachel DeWoskin, author of Foreign Babes in Beijing
“A delicious debut novel seasoned with just the right balance of humor and heart and sprinkled with fascinating cultural tidbits. Read thoroughly. Share with friends.”
—Claire Cook, bestselling author of Must Love Dogs
“Ann Mah’s richly detailed Kitchen Chinese is humorous enough to make you laugh out loud, and so delicious you are sure to begin craving Peking duck and dim sum. A true tale of reinventing oneself in a new and foreign world.”
—Patricia Wells, author of Vegetable Harvest and We’ll Always Have Paris… And Provence
“Suffused with humor, genuine warmth, and mouth-watering culinary descriptions, Kitchen Chinese is, first and foremost, about the adventure of self-discovery.”
—Irina Reyn, author of What Happened to Anna K
“With a light, self-deprecating touch, Ann Mah portrays the quirks, pleasures and surprises of life as a young Chinese-American woman finding her way in an alien motherland.”
—Jen Lin-Liu, author of Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey through China
NEWS AND INTERVIEWS
Publishers Weekly, Cooking the Books column
KCBS radio San Francisco, Community Corner (episode 21)
IN TRANSLATION
Chinese (Fish & Fish, Taiwan)
Dutch (Uitgeverij de Fontein, Netherlands)
Greek (Harlenic Hellas, Greece)
Italian (66thand2nd, Italy)
Polish (Nasza Ksiegarnia Spolka, Poland)
Portuguese (ASA Editores, Portugal)
Spanish (Ediciones B, Spain)
Find Kitchen Chinese on-line at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Books-A-Million
Indiebound
iTunes
Kobo