Oh My Mother!: A Memoir in Nine Adventures -- Connie Wang, Hardcover

"Hilarious, candid, and heartfelt . . . It's like Eat Pray Love meets The Amazing Race with hints of Cathy Park Hong's hit essay collection, Minor Feelings." --Oprah Daily

A dazzling mother-daughter adventure around the world in pursuit of self-discovery, a family reckoning, and Asian American defiance

In Chinese, the closest expression to oh my god is wo de ma ya. It's an interjection, a polite expletive, something to say when you're out of words. Translated literally, it means oh my mother--the instinctual first person you think of when you're on the cusp of losing it, or putting it all together.

In each essay of this hilarious, heartfelt, and pitch-perfectly honest memoir, journalist Connie Wang explores her complicated relationship to her stubborn and charismatic mother, Qing Li, through the "oh my god" moments in their travels together. From attending a Magic Mike strip show in Vegas to experimenting with edibles in Amsterdam to flip-flopping through Versailles, this iconic mother-daughter duo venture into the world to find their place in it, and sometimes rail against it--as well as against each other.

There are hijinks, capers, and adventures. There is also tenderness, growth, and discovery. In telling these stories about the places they've gone and the things they've done, Wang reveals another story: the true story of two women who finally learned that once we are comfortable with the feeling of not belonging--once we can reject the need to belong to any place, community, census, designation, or nation--we can experience something almost like freedom.

Author: Connie Wang
Publisher: Viking
Published: 05/09/2023
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.80w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780593490921

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2023
Booklist 04/15/2023 pg. 9

About the Author
Connie Wang is a journalist, writer, and editor. Previously she led Refinery29's editorial team as executive editor, where she explored how race and status inform our culture and politics. She has won three Front Page Awards and has written for outlets including the New York Times. A graduate of UC Berkeley, she was born in Jinan, China, raised in Minnesota, and lives in Los Angeles.