Beautiful Country is what the US is called in Mandarin--at least by people who haven't emigrated here yet. Qian and her mother join Qian's dad in America in 1994, when Qian is 7. Her dad was critical of the Chinese government and wanted to be free. Unfortunately freedom didn't pay well, and the family was crushingly poor. Qian's mom, a math and computer professor in China, gets her first job in a sweatshop, bringing Qian along. Even as Qian gains fluency in English, life and school are hard. Her teacher doesn't believe she's writing her own essays, and she's told to change her clothes more often. Qian would wear the same pair of shoe for a year--starting with them being too large, and ending the year with her toes sticking out. She faced more than one kind of hunger growing up.

This isn't a tell-all memoir, and there is little blame placed on her parents. Wang is empathetic, even when she's disappointed. (content warning about incidents with a cat). I'm not doing it justice, so I'll just say it's a beautiful telling of a hard life that thankfully ends in triumph. I hope her parents are proud!