Joan Is Okay

The Publisher Says: A witty, moving, piercingly insightful new novel about a marvelously complicated woman who can’t be anyone but herself, from the award-winning author of Chemistry

Joan is a thirtysomething ICU doctor at a busy New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese parents who came to the United States to secure the American dream for their children, Joan is intensely devoted to her work, happily solitary, successful. She does look up sometimes and wonder where her true roots lie: at the hospital, where her white coat makes her feel needed, or with her family, who try to shape her life by their own cultural and social expectations.

Once Joan and her brother, Fang, were established in their careers, her parents moved back to show more China, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in their homeland. But when Joan’s father suddenly dies and her mother returns to America to reconnect with her children, a series of events sends Joan spiraling out of her comfort zone just as her hospital, her city, and the world are forced to reckon with a health crisis more devastating than anyone could have imagined.

Deceptively spare yet quietly powerful, laced with sharp humor, Joan Is Okay touches on matters that feel deeply resonant: being Chinese-American right now; working in medicine at a high-stakes time; finding one’s voice within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated workplace; and staying independent within a tight-knit family. But above all, it’s a portrait of one remarkable woman so surprising that you can’t get her out of your head.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: First things first: I think Joan's neurodivergent. There. I said it.

What else is Joan? A disappointing daughter, who isn't going to give her mother the expected grands. An annoying sister, who is resolutely unimpressed with her brother's lavish getting-and-spending lifestyle. A breathtakingly good, effective ICU doctor at the outset of the Plague. A clueless, oblivious object of somewhat diffident romantic interest...utterly unrequited...for her neighbor. And most of all, most satisfyingly and unbreakably, Joan is herself.

If you don't like to read "women's fiction" because it's about men (how to catch), read this book. It's about Others (how to evade), when it's about anyone not Joan. And that was exactly why I enjoyed the read so much. Joan's struggles are typical for an atypical person, and her intelligence isn't a problem but a solution, making her an extra delightful companion for this reader. As everyone around her tries to make her feel she's missing out, lacking something, somehow wanting for something, and until she decides for herself what she thinks, she remains upset and at sea. In her enforced idleness (bereavement leave? for a father she felt little connection to still less affection for, shouting abuser that he was?) she loses the armor of being too busy to deal with all the mishegas of ordinary life.

It is great to read about the woman lead's sense of self being explored and resolved without a boyfriend at the beginning, middle, or end of the process. It is bracing to read the genuinely painful experience of the first-generation American in attempting to come to a happy resolution to a parent's desires when these are rooted in a wildly different world. But then, as the visibly different as well as culturally different as well as neurologically different (this last is not explicit in the text, but its factuality is the hill I'll die on) Joan thinks, "Why try to explain yourself to someone who had no capacity to listen?" She thinks this in a different relationship's context but the truth is, it is Joan all the way. She's not going to do the same thing a dozen...even, I suspect, a pair of...times expecting or hoping for different results. What kept me from giving it all five stars was, however, that very thing: I felt Joan was harshly judgmental from beginning to end, despite questioning herself and her responses as we went through the story. I think that's a bit unbelievable, it seemed to me she would've adjusted some of her private judgments...still, not a fatal flaw since I liked her from giddy-up to whoa.

In fact, in just over 200pp, I fell in love with Joan as she is. I think you might do the same. Give her a few of your hours. She's a good companion. show less

This is a story of how difficult it can be to remain true to oneself, especially when the person is outside the mainstream of commonly accepted ideas of expected behavior. Joan is a Chinese American intensive care physician in New York City. She is a woman in her mid-thirties who takes solace in her minimalist lifestyle and her work. It reflects a medical professional’s experiences leading up to and during COVID 19. Joan’s father has recently died, and her Chinese mother wants to leave the US and return to China. Her brother leads the upwardly mobile materialistic life. Their values are much different. Joan has chosen the single life and does not desire children. Many “well-meaning” friends and associates give her unsolicited show more advice about her choices.

It is a quiet reflective novel about pressures to live in a way other people view as “normal,” but Joan is content with her life. The story contains both serious topics and gentle humor. It is a story of racism and cultural differences. It is also a story of the generational divide, allowing a parent to return to a world in which she feels comfortable. This situation provides an opportunity to accept her mother’s choices (in a way others have not been able to accept her own).

I think many people will be able to relate to Joan, especially anyone who is seen as atypical or out of the mainstream. I am sure lots of people have had, at some point in life, to endure the comments of judgmental people who know how a life “should” be lived. It also comments, through flashbacks with the school guidance counselor, on how quickly people leap to label introverted studious women as “on the spectrum,” but personal choice to live differently does not require a diagnosis. It is a beautifully written story and one I enjoyed immensely. show less

Joan loves her job as an attending at a busy teaching hospital in New York. She runs the intensive care units and loves how machines keep people alive, the clarity of the job. She works all the time, cheerfully covering for the other doctors. She lives alone but spends barely any time in her apartment. Then a new neighbor moves in across the hall and his overtures of friendship confuse and annoy her. And her father dies and although she took 48 hours off to fly to and from China for the funeral, her boss doesn't find that adequate and insists she take more time.

Weike Wang is the author of the delightful and surprising Chemistry and this new novel is even better. Joan is a wonderful protagonist; relentlessly literal in her show more interpretations and single-minded in her devotion to her work, she has trouble figuring out what's expected of her when her mother calls to chat or her neighbor drops by with a pie he made. Wang drops the reader into the point in Joan's life when just being very good at her job isn't enough, for others and for Joan herself. This is a book that is set before and during the beginning of the pandemic. I wasn't sure I wanted to read about any of that, but Wang handles it all with subtlety. Weike Wang is an author I am very eager to hear more from. show less

This is a story of how difficult it can be to remain true to oneself, especially when the person is outside the mainstream of commonly accepted ideas of expected behavior. Joan is a Chinese American intensive care physician in New York City. She is a woman in her mid-thirties who takes solace in her minimalist lifestyle and her work. It reflects a medical professional’s experiences leading up to and during COVID 19. Joan’s father has recently died, and her Chinese mother wants to leave the US and return to China. Her brother leads the upwardly mobile materialistic life. Their values are much different. Joan has chosen the single life and does not desire children. Many “well-meaning” friends and associates give her unsolicited show more advice about her choices.

It is a quiet reflective novel about pressures to live in a way other people view as “normal,” but Joan is content with her life. The story contains both serious topics and gentle humor. It is a story of racism and cultural differences. It is also a story of the generational divide, allowing a parent to return to a world in which she feels comfortable. This situation provides an opportunity to accept her mother’s choices (in a way others have not been able to accept her own).

I think many people will be able to relate to Joan, especially anyone who is seen as atypical or out of the mainstream. I am sure lots of people have had, at some point in life, to endure the comments of judgmental people who know how a life “should” be lived. It also comments, through flashbacks with the school guidance counselor, on how quickly people leap to label introverted studious women as “on the spectrum,” but personal choice to live differently does not require a diagnosis. It is a beautifully written story and one I enjoyed immensely. show less

I am hard of hearing and sometimes my hearing goes out completely. Hearing people tell me this awful but it is quite peaceful and never bothers me like hearing sometimes does. When I read this novel, it felt the same as when my hearing is off. The main character, "Joan", is content to live life her way but everyone around her insists that it is better to live their way. This novel, while quirky and wonderfully subdued, has a quiet power to it that adds incredible strength to its straightforward addressing of racism and cultural differences. Joan quietly dispels the pressure to live to their standards, to "hear". This was a powerful book in 224 pages. It felt light but went very deep.

This wasn't quite what I was expecting. What I was expecting from JOAN IS OKAY was something along the lines of ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE. Both are about misfit women. (And both women are either OK or completely fine.) But ELEANOR is played for laughs and sentimentality, while JOAN was completely serious and refused to follow any predictable narrative arc.

Joan is an ICU doctor who lives inside her work. She enjoys nothing more than being a cog in a machine. She has odd, not-exactly-close yet not-really-distant relationships with her mother and her older brother, and likewise had with her father, whose death back in China opens the novel. Her relationships with her co-workers are also not cold or distant or weird, but odd, in show more a matter-of-fact kind of way.

Joan gets a new neighbor across the hall who infiltrates her life in a frankly creepy-friendly way. He gives her food, objects, furniture. As this guy noses in more and more, his furniture filling her previously spartan living space, one would be forgiven for thinking: ah, now here is where the fun young guy shows Joan, one piece of furniture at a time, how to live, laugh, and love! But, no. It is not that kind of book at all.

The author is not a medical doctor, but she is a chemist with a doctorate in public health. It's always so refreshing to read about characters who are in STEM. Writers only ever seem to write about other writers, usually thinly disguised as "artists." (I always imagine them thinking, "It'll be way too obvious I'm writing about myself if I make her a writer... I know! I've got it, she'll be an artist." Right, they'll never suspect.) show less

4.5 I really liked it, but something prevented me from really diving in - could be timing on my end. Weike Wang is a genius at creating characters that would be exasperating in real life, but are sympathetic on paper. She also uses science brilliantly to present another thoughtful angle on a topic. Here she does the same with words and language. Joan is an American born to Chinese immigrant parents who move back as soon as she starts college. Her older brother by 8 years, Fang was born in China and did not come to America until the parents were established, which they never fully are. They just couldn't make the American Dream a reality, but did very well back in China. Fang and Joan are very successful by American standards - he is a show more hedge fund manager, excessively rich and he and his family (wife & 3 sons) live in a palatial estate in Greenwich, CT. Joan is an ICU attending and very respected in her field. She is also a total workaholic and doesn't have much need for human company or relationships. After her father died in China, she was back at work within 2 days. Almost robotic, she needs little sleep, and is happy to take everyone else's shifts, especially around the holidays so she can avoid her brother's lavish parties. Then 3 things happen that finally exposes the grief that she has kept at bay, pretty much most of her life. She is required to take a month of bereavement leave, even though she doesn't think she needs it. Her mother comes to visit at Fang's. And the pandemic hits. Through these events, and some outreach from a new neighbor, Joan's impenetrable shell slowly starts to crack and human connection becomes appreciated, though still not comfortably sought. Part of the story too, is Joan coming to terms with her own life choices. At 36 she is still single and really has no desire for marriage or children. She loves her job because she is so mechanically good at it - her white doctor's coat is 'home' and the epicenter of her comfort zone. But she learns she can extend it my inches at her own pace. Full of beautiful truths about family, ambition, immigration, success and self-awareness, this book though short in length makes up for it in depth. show less