A Quitter's Paradise

A Novel

By: Elysha Chang

Narrated by: Angela Lin

Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

In A Quitter’s Paradise, the darkly humorous debut by bold, new voice Elysha Chang, a young woman does everything she can to ignore her mother’s death, even as unearthed family secrets become increasingly inextricable from her own.

Eleanor is doing just fine. Yes, she’s hiding things from her husband. Sure, she quit her PhD program and is now conducting unauthorized research on illegitimately procured mice. And, true, her mother is dead, and Eleanor has yet to go through her things. But what else is she supposed to do? What shape can grief take when you didn’t understand the person you’ve lost?

Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path that will force her to confront her present. After a series of incidents—and some questionable choices—it becomes clear that no matter how hard Eleanor tries, she will never be able to escape her grief, or her family, despite her wildest attempts. But will she be brave enough to withstand the reckoning she’s hurtling toward?

At once disarmingly provocative and compulsively enjoyable, A Quitter’s Paradise interweaves Eleanor’s story with her parents’ in an unexpectedly funny study of the beauty and contradictions of family bonds and self-knowledge, exploring the ways we unwittingly guard the secrets of our loved ones, even from ourselves.

©2023 Elysha Chang (P)2023 SJP Lit

sad story that goes nowhere.

leaves you depleted. sad people that don't get happier. no uplifting ending to it.

Disappointing

Saw interview with Author and SJP on today show was expecting big things. Book leaves lots of unanswered questions and was confusing a lot of the time. Ending felt unfinished.

Not so great!

Anticlimactic. No real ending. Didn’t like how the story went from one era to another. Would’ve made it easier to follow if the story was told in sequence.

So-so.

After hearing Jessica-Parker raving about this book in an interview, I had high expectations. Disappointing. Additionally, the sing-song narration didn't help. Beautifully written language, but that's about it. Somehow I missed the supposed deep meanings in this book.

Not great.

Couldn’t find a point to the story. Didn’t much care for the main character of the story and the narrator was not my favorite. Overall not a great read.

Rambling and depressing

Not what i was expecting. Rambling and depressing. I was extremely disappointed it leads nowhere except into a depressing abyss of death.

Sad cliffhanger

The ending was a sad cliffhanger that I’m not sure I want to know the ending of if I had to sit through another book to get it.

Dramatic narration of meandering story

The story never seemed to get anywhere or have a point. The narration was overly dramatic and slow (even at 1.2).

Depressing

Banal and sometimes off putting! Details I could do without. No beginning, middle or end.

A slow burn, beautifully written

This book doesn’t have a tidy resolution or linear narrative but it’s the layers and nuance that make it a delight to read. Captures the experience of being a child of East Asian immigrants in the US, and the way that erasing the past, though meant to unburden the future, creates gaps in our ability to understand ourselves. Enjoyed Angela Lin’s performance and how she subtly differentiated the characters without distracting. Overall highly recommend taking your time with this one— it’s worth it. As a bonus, the depiction of a scientist’s lifestyle and work are (sometimes painfully) accurate!