The Wangs vs. the World

By: Jade Chang

Narrated by: Nancy Wu

A hilarious debut novel about a wealthy but fractured Chinese immigrant family that had it all, only to lose every last cent - and about the road trip they take across America that binds them back together.

Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family's ancestral lands - and his pride.

Charles pulls Andrew, his aspiring comedian son, and Grace, his style-obsessed daughter, out of schools he can no longer afford. Together with their stepmother, Barbra, they embark on a cross-country road trip from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the upstate New York hideout of the eldest daughter, disgraced art world it-girl Saina. But with his son waylaid by a temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1,000-thread-count sheets, and an epic smash-up in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the old world and the new, between keeping his family intact and finally fulfilling his dream of starting anew in China.

Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America - and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.

©2016 Jade Chang Inc. (P)2016 Recorded Books

Fantastic

Good storytelling and good flow. The characters had depth and humor. I really enjoyed the book.

A delightful read/listen!

Character development and conversations in this book made me feel like I knew the entire Wang family well. This is the best narration I have EVER listened to! Phenomenal!

Fascinating family journey.

Quite enjoyable. This was a fun, funny, touching read. The narration was really well done.

A Spin On the Classic All-American Road Trip Story

You know it’s serious when you re-up your lapsed audiobook subscription for just one book. It was so worth it for The Wangs vs the World by Jade Chang, the story of a wealthy immigrant family that loses their fortune in the financial crisis and regroups on a (hilarious) road trip across America.

What I love most about this audiobook, besides its spin on the classic All-American road trip story, is its delicate balance between comedy and compassion. I LOVE the entire Wang family — there’s the embarrassing dad, the cold stepmother, the art world ingenue, the college bro, the millennial fashion blogger, and the ironic hipster farmer. Jade Chang playfully teases each character about their individual personality quirks while ultimately digging into the humanity beneath, making you grow to love each one. My personal favorite is Grace, the high school student with a weird suicide obsession who steals blogging equipment from her boarding school.

And if you don’t cry during the last scene — the culmination of this family’s epic road trip that takes them all where they least expected to wind up — you are a heartless monster! (Just kidding!) (Kind of!) (It should make you cry at least a little on the inside.)

Nancy Wu crushes the audiobook narration with a fabulous dry humor, and she effortlessly switches registers and accents to portray different characters — everything from a sixteen-year-old fashion blogger to a sixty-year-old cosmetics tycoon. Snippets of Chinese are sprinkled throughout, and it was so cool to hear her speak both the Chinese and the English together. I loved every minute of her interpretation of this story, from beginning to end.

This is definitely one of those effortless listens that translates beautifully to audio <3

Riveting

A tale of creation destruction and rebirth with a twist on the American dream. Highly recommended!

A good way to spend some time

I loved it! At times humorous as well as thoughtful. The story took some turns that caught me off guard.

Spectacular

A wonderful story about family, love and living. And the narrator was one of the best I have listened to on Audible.

Enjoyable

I think the performance was excellent, but overall I think the book itself is good but not great. The characters have a tremendous amount of zest and life to them, but I was left hanging by a lot of the intentions and actions within the story. I don't feel fulfilled like I was expecting to.

I would recommend this book to everyone

Chang developed the characters so well that I felt like I’d known them for years. A family who started out as very unlikeable became endearing by then end of the book. A great story of family and expectations. Finding oneself after being lost.

a lot of fun!

I loved this book so much. The Wang family was really a fantastic family to get to know. I laughed so many times aloud from this book, and a few times where I ended up tearing up, too! I definitely recommend this book if you enjoy family dramas that have a lot of heart and enough comedy to make it feel like a happy story overall, with sad/hard moments. Nancy Wu does a phenomenal job of narrating, as usual!

5/5, I'm so glad I went with the audiobook for this one as it brought the characters alive so much more completely!