My Summer of Love and Misfortune

Iris Wang doesn’t take her life too seriously. In fact, she will not graduate from high school, let along attend one of the Ivy League schools dreamed of by her parents. Other than shopping and partying, Iris really has no interests whatsoever, and she is quite happy with this status. Her disappointed and exasperated parents decide that Iris should spend the summer in Beijing. This trip would give her a chance to meet her aunt, uncle and cousin and might serve to connect her more closely to her Chinese culture and heritage. Once in Beijing, Iris becomes quite used to the extravagant life lived by her new-found relatives, and her self-indulgence continues. In an effort to at least teach her the language, her uncle hires a tutor, Frank, for Iris. However, since romance has far more appeal for Iris than the work involved in learning Mandarin, Frank becomes a romantic interest for Iris instead.

Iris, the main character and narrator of the novel, is a spoiled 17-year-old who behaves and reacts like an immature five-year-old. There is nothing redeeming whatsoever in her personality. She is selfish and impulsive and, worse yet, sees no reason why she should change. While the author may intend her as a comic character, she is merely childish and borders on arrogance in her relationships. There is little or no reason to like her.

In many young adult novels, there is a coming-of-age theme, but, in this book, any change on the part of Iris is far too little and far too late in the story to be at all believable. Yes, in the last few pages, Iris becomes interested in the slums of Beijing and decides to fund-raise for them and also to teach English to poverty-stricken children. Unfortunately, this is an entirely unlikely scenario and a weak ending to the novel. Why might readers expect Iris to give up her life of partying, drugs, alcohol and sex for a chance to do good and explain the difference between pronouns and prepositions?

The setting of Beijing, other than detailed descriptions of food, does not particularly resonate with readers. Tiananmen Square is mentioned, as is Chairman Mao and the National Museum, but none really add to the narrative. They are a convenient backdrop so that readers understand Iris is spending time in Beijing, away from her usual American neighbourhood. Iris makes little or no attempt to adapt to the culture and lifestyle around her, and the final last-stitch effort on the author’s part to do this is unrealistic. There are comic moments in the book, to be sure, but these fall flat after a few chapters. Iris’s life seems to be an unending cycle of stupidity and carelessness, and so the comedy becomes very thin when there is little to sustain it.

“Narcissistic, vapid, and self-absorbed.” This description, cited in the excerpt above, describes Iris perfectly and is found in the very early pages of the book. She doesn’t change. There is no reason to read the rest of the novel.