Holding Pattern

A Novel

By: Jenny Xie

Narrated by: Annie Q

Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

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. She’s gone through a humiliating breakup, dropped out of her graduate program, and left everything behind. Now she’s back in her childhood home in Oakland, wondering what’s next.

To her surprise, her mother isn’t 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 she’d be planning her own wedding, but instead finds herself helping her mother plan hers—to 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 relationships—especially the one with Marissa. Will they succeed in seeing each other anew, adult to adult?

As they peel back the layers of their history—the old wounds, cultural barriers, and complex affection—they must come to a new understanding of how they can propel each other forward, and what they’ve 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.

©2023 Jenny Xie (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Exquisite and wise...what unspools [in Holding Pattern] is often so tender that it hurts. But hope threads us back, encourages us to understand the intricacies of this life, and then to try again.”–New York Times

“Driven by Xie’s irresistible voice, this is a warm and funny debut about longing and belonging, the mother-daughter bond, and finding intimacy in an increasingly alienated world.”–Vogue

“With warmth and humor, Xie’s debut novel upends the expected immigrant-parent-and-first-generation-daughter narrative.”–Washington Post

boring

There was absolutely no storyline, I don’t understand the point of this book, nothing exciting happened.

Poor story line and narration

Did not enjoy this book
Nothing like the description
Juvenile story line
Would not recommend

Did not enjoy this

Did not like the book or the performance. Very annoying voice. What was the point of the cuddling job? Don’t get it at all.

Pointless.

Storyline didn’t go anywhere. Author introduced various characters and plot lines that were poorly fleshed out. Main character was whiny, needy, and shallow. The “life lessons” learned were very surface and obvious. There was no illumination of or adequate exploration of the bond between a mother and daughter. The author seemed to be writing of the experience of children of immigrants as if from 3rd hand knowledge.

I loathed each character. Maybe it’s a good thing each one of them were not explored with any depth.

liked it

I liked this story and would read/listen to more books by this author. in fact, I'd listen to a follow up to this book.

A beautiful story about facing adulthood

I heard an interview with the author on NPR and thought the story sounded intriguing, so I bought the audiobook. I am so glad I did. This is a beautiful story about the relationships between mothers and daughters and finding yourself as an adult. The narrator did a wonderful job of bringing the characters to life and I appreciated the Chinese pronunciations, which I would’ve butchered in my own head had I read the book myself.

Don’t do it

This book was boring and anti climactic. The narrator made all the women sound like children and the men clueless.