fine-ing your way through your quarter-life crisis

Linh Ly is all right. At least, that’s what she tells people. She’s okay. She’s fine. She doesn’t tell people about how her parents divorced. She doesn’t tell them about her father’s issues with alcohol, or how he came to America from a country at war.

Linh doesn’t tell people that her mother has started dating again, and she is so anxious about it that she’s started following her mother on dates to make sure she gets home safely (and alone). She doesn’t tell people that the reason she bought new clothes and started wearing makeup and got her hair cut is because she doesn’t want to get recognized while she’s following her mother.

Linh doesn’t tell people about the stack of delivery boxes that she’s acquiring in her living room. She doesn’t tell anyone about what she has hidden under that stack. And she doesn’t tell anyone about the anxiety she’s been experiencing.

Linh doesn’t have to tell anyone about how she’s gone out with Chandler a few times, because they all already know, and many of them are jealous. His family is crazy wealthy, and Linh finds herself drawn into that world and making friends who are also crazy wealthy. She’s introduced to country clubs and credit cards with no limits and yachts, and she’s not quite sure how she feels about it all.

At 27, she finds herself living through a challenging year, a year that includes a school shooting, a car accident, a bear, a death in the family, and a haze of existential dread. Will Linh be able to survive the weight of it all? And if she does, will she find herself changed by it all, or will she still feel so stuck in her life?

Linh Ly Is Doing Just Fine is a fascinating character study of a young woman in crisis. As an Asian woman living in Texas, she is faced with racism and guns, family turmoil and loss, and caring friends and generosity. The experience of the quarter-life crisis, with all its anxiety and self-reproach is on display in this story, with all its ups and downs, its hopelessness and exhaustion and ennui. But with most things, the only way out is through, and Linh faces her crisis with the love of a good cat, lots of naps, and persistence. Her story is both personal and universal, and it offers insight into that final process of growing up and figuring out who you are.

I listened to Linh Ly Is Doing Just Fine, and I thought narrator Eunice Wong did an amazing job bringing Linh’s voice to life. The way she voices Linh’s sadness and her snark add so much power to this quiet story, and I loved experiencing this story through the audio book. As a character-driven story, you need a strong voice, and Wong brings it.

A copy of the audio book for Linh Ly Is Doing Just Fine was provided by Tantor Audio through NetGalley, with many thanks.