The Many Meanings of Meilan. Andrea Wang. 2021. [August] 368 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: I thought I knew all of my grandmother’s stories, but I was wrong. Somehow, I forgot to ask Nǎinai about the most important one of all.Now Tiffi is demanding to hear it. I’m good at inventing bedtime stories, but it feels wrong to make up the story of how our family bakery got its name. There is meaning behind every name. But with Nǎinai gone and the rest of my family too broken to talk about her, I’m left to fill in the gaps on my own.I take a deep breath and gather my thoughts. “Long ago,” I start, “there was a fènghuáng who lived in a tall—”
Premise/plot: Meilan, our heroine, moves with her family from Boston, Massachusetts, to Redbud, Ohio, in Andrea Wang's The Many Meanings of Meilan. The move isn't by her choice, though Meilan certainly feels partially responsible. Wasn't it *her* bedtime story that set off her Third Aunt's mad frenzy of demands and accusations?! If she'd just read a picture book aloud to her cousin, would the family have imploded??? Now the family is fractured and the edges are sharp and painful. Making the move are Meilan, Bàba, Māma, and Gōnggong. (Her parents and grandfather). Meilan decides that it is her job to piece the family back together again, to "fix" what she has broken.
But really that's only a fraction of the weight Meilan is bearing. She faces prejudice, discrimination, and some bullying in her new school. It starts with the principal himself who insists that Meilan change her "exotic" name to something "more American" and "normal." Meilan becomes "Melanie" at school, but, it isn't a good fit....not really. And it doesn't make the others welcome and accept her.
The novel is about Meilan exploring the many meanings of her name...and how she wears a different name in different places and around different people.
My thoughts: The Many Meanings of Meilan is a Problem Novel. It is also a coming of age novel. But mainly it's a coming of age novel packed with many Problems. And one of the Problems is racism and race relations. It is a heavy book. Not just because of Race. No, it's also heavy because she bears the guilt--deserved or not--of causing the family's problems. As an adult, I want to tell her it is not her fault, her responsibility. The tensions in the family must have already been there and just beneath the surface before Third Aunt overheard her making up a story--a story that Third Aunt claims is a vision. But Meilan feels like she *has* to take care of everybody and everything.
It was a heavy novel though well written. I can't say I "enjoyed" it, but I certainly read it in one sitting and followed Meilan's story from beginning to end.
© 2021 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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