Borrowed the audiobook from the VOEBB public library in Berlin, vi the Libby app (wishing they won't deactivate my account when they realize I don't live in Berlin anymore).
This was a short (relatively: 8 hours) read that I listened to in only 4 days, a sort of family drama from three perspectives: Tony, a Chinese immigrant in NYC, his daughter Tammy, and Oliver, a young lawyer that crosses their path. I liked that it follows the characters over the span of some 15 or 20 years, and it reads very easily—great gardening material.
Without spoiling anything I will say that I didn't care much for Oliver's "dark family secret" (advertised in the book's summary) that felt a bit like an unnecessary side plot, without any meaningful impact on the rest of the story.
Paper Names is Susie Luo's debut novel—she studied law and used to work as a banker. I'm noticing a pattern with modern fiction where I tend to like books by authors who haven't followed the beaten path to writing (via English Lit studies and editing, or variations of it), and instead bring their experience from entirely different fields to their stories. Other examples on top of my mind would be Robin Sloan and Hank Green.
Maybe I'll start giving gut feeling ratings on a scale of 10 to books, for future reference.
6/10