Jean Chen Ho

A witty, warm, and irreverent book that traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as they navigate friendship, sexuality, identity, and heartbreak over two decades. Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely highways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts with them. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition--qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other's lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they've lost. In ten finely drawn stories, Jean Chen Ho's debut collection peels back the layers of female friendship--the intensity, resentment, and boundless love--to probe the beating hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves, and each other, in light of the insecurities and shame that holds them back. Spanning countries and selves, Fiona and Jane is an intimate portrait of a friendship, a deep dive into the universal perplexities of being young and alive, and a bracingly honest account of two Asian women who dare to stake a claim on joy in a changing, contemporary America.

Stories

Fiona and Jane

There’s different kinds of mothers and her mother truly acts as her heart and in a reciprocal relationship 

“She remembered the admiring gaze her mother had cost toward those college students in Taipei, when they slurped down hot noodle bowls after her ballet class. Fiona had thought her mother wanted to be like those young men and women, free to fill up her life with books and learning, if only she wasn’t saddled with a small child. She realized she’d been wrong about her mother’s eyes trailing after those college students in Taipei; her mother’s gaze had always returned to her.” 

“A knockout of a book.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer and The Committed “Fiona and Jane is the book I did not know I was waiting to be written. . . . Read this remarkable work of fiction and feel the world open up around you.” —Angela Flournoy, author of National Book Award finalist The Turner House “Unsentimental, subtly subversive, and always surprising. . . . I love this book.” —Cathy Park Hong, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Minor Feelings A witty, warm, and irreverent book that traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as they navigate friendship, sexuality, identity, and heartbreak over two decades. Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition—qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other's lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they've lost. In stories told in alternating voices, Jean Chen Ho's debut collection peels back the layers of female friendship—the intensity, resentment, and boundless love—to probe the beating hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves, and each other, in light of the insecurities and shame that holds them back. Spanning countries and selves, Fiona and Jane is an intimate portrait of a friendship, a deep dive into the universal perplexities of being young and alive, and a bracingly honest account of two Asian women who dare to stake a claim on joy in a changing, contemporary America.

Lindsay

Collection of interconnected short stories told in alternating POV with a non linear timeline that looks at friendship, love, sexuality and heartbreak.

Abigail F

somehow perfectly explains the insanity of girlhood friendship

Joyce

At times it felt very deeply relatable in its depictions of long term friendships and the highs lows and mundanity of moving through your 20s

but Fiona’s storyline felt unfinished and Jane’s felt rushed   

mixed feelings but interesting quick read

Chit

At times it felt very deeply relatable in its depictions of long term friendships and the highs lows and mundanity of moving through your 20s

but Fiona’s storyline felt unfinished and Jane’s felt rushed   

mixed feelings but interesting quick read

Alyanna

not what i expected after reading the synopsis (the author was unable to capture the intimacy of female friendships/girlhood). wanted to DNF but still pushed myself to finish it, though the ending was underwhelming and corny.

also the writing style wasn’t aligned with my preference…

Gillian Rose

I really liked this series of stories. I felt like I knew Fiona and Jane and seeing their relationship to each other and others was really interesting. While the stories weren't necessarily told in order, I never felt confused. Lately, I feel like I've been avoiding more literary fiction, but there was something light about these stories. I don't know. I really appreciated this book.

Beatriz Aguiar

4.5

I want to see how this book holds up in my mind but upon finishing it a 4.5 feels right.
I understand there's a lot of controversy around this book, people saying it has a misleading synopsis. However, maybe because I didn't give much stock to the synopsis or at least didn't make a lot of assumptions based on it, I really enjoyed this book.
I honestly think that, if not for the bad marketing surrounding this book it would have a way better rating than it currently has on goodreads. 
It is not a story about friends. It is the story of two asian women, who happened to be best friends, navigating life. Even though the two are always linked and are mentioned, ultimately the book is about how each one has their own problems and how they overcome them or don't. 
I think it is best described as a true literary fiction where though lives are interconnected and there's something to be seen of a friendship there, the book focuses on real world problems characters go through. 
It is real, cruel and heartbreakingly beautiful.

Tylar M

Kristen Claiborn

My online book club has become one of my favorite places to talk about books and to discover new books. We read four books a month, the main selection coming from the Book of the Month Club’s main selections for said month. The majority of the time I thoroughly enjoy the books we read, but that’s not always the case. 
	Fiona and Jane is billed as a series of short stories following these two friends over the course of their lives. I suppose that’s almost true, but not quite. These are snippets, almost vignettes, of their lives. There’s little “story” at all. I have always had a hard time with short stories, because most of the time they aren’t really stories. Stephen King has great short stories, with solid story structure, but this one does not. 
	Neither of these characters are written to be particularly likeable, which added to my trip on the struggle-bus with this one. When it came down to deciding on two stars, I really just didn’t care enough about anything going on to want to know more about…well…anything going on in this book. I found the entire thing pretty disappointing.

Raphaëlle

I as a fourth generation Midwest American am really not the target audience. 

This book was, okay. I wanted more out of it. I really thought it would be about Fiona and Jane as “one entity” but it was stories about them living their lives mostly separate, though some stories had them in the same place. 

The short stories were good, but by the end I wanted more for both of them. I just felt sad for them and maybe that was the point, that this two women had gone through so much in like that they couldn’t get a happily ever after. 

Rosie

I as a fourth generation Midwest American am really not the target audience. 

This book was, okay. I wanted more out of it. I really thought it would be about Fiona and Jane as “one entity” but it was stories about them living their lives mostly separate, though some stories had them in the same place. 

The short stories were good, but by the end I wanted more for both of them. I just felt sad for them and maybe that was the point, that this two women had gone through so much in like that they couldn’t get a happily ever after. 

The book was good. I liked Won a lot when he was around. I think there’s a part of me that can’t understand books like this because so much of growing and understanding one’s self was done through being in a relationship with others or reflecting upon that breakup. I liked how casual the sexuality stuff could be but there were a lot of reasons to dislike characters for me.

Cindy Lieberman

I couldn’t finish this mess of a book. Not witty nor warm (as the description promises), but I can see how it would be considered irreverent for readers of a certain age. It reads like a collection of diary entries taken from different (random?) points in time from the title characters’ alternating narratives. Sorry but I have no patience for reading about getting fake IDs, drinking too much, and 🤮. (Been there, done that) In fairness, there were better moments, but not enough to keep me going past 40%.

Fiona and Jane Stories

Reviews

Highlights