Where Reasons End

A Novel

Paperback, 192 pages

Published Jan. 12, 2021 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.

ISBN:
978-1-9848-0165-4
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3 stars (1 review)

5 editions

Interesting to chew through, not very enjoyable to read

3 stars

This book was hard to read! Predictable, since it's mostly about a parent grieving the loss of a child who chose to die. But also, being a book about a Chinese immigrant to the u.s. writer whose son killed himself at 16, written by a Chinese immigrant to the u.s. writer whose son killed himself at 16, made it all the more difficult to read. Since Li is quite explicit about it being a novel, I found myself constantly wondering what was fictional, if anything beyond the basic conceit: the book takes place entirely in the mind of the mother, who maintains a conversation with her now dead son, with the conversation being the bulk of the text of the book. That is, I assume that Li didn't maintain this kind of formal conversation for months following her son's death, other than in the form of writing the novel, but …