Rental House, the third novel (my first) by Weike Wang is the story of a couple, recently married, hosting their families at a rental house. Nate is straight out of Hillbilly Elegy, and Keru is a first generation immigrant child of hardline Chinese parents. He’s a slacker, she’s an overachiever. It’s kind of a culture-clash novel. Or at least that’s how it’s pitched.
A little past halfway through, I had no idea why I was reading it. The characters did not come off as real people (much less interesting or likeable ones), I didn’t connect with the humour (tbh I don’t even know what was intended to be funny), and there didn’t seem to be any point in continuing.
On reading some reviews, the second half of the book introduces more characters (Nate’s loser brother, some neighbour) that makes it sound more like the pitch, but I didn’t have it in me to continue.
The Washington Post review positions the theme of the book like this:
All of this gives the book, which on its surface is so quick and legible, a quiet depth and sadness. Is it better to bring a child into a world where one can never work hard enough and to suffer is to live? Or is it better to be together without children, to move heirless, like ghosts, through borrowed spaces?
If I’d read that first, I probably wouldn’t have picked up the book. Those questions don’t really interest me at this point of my life, and it explains why the book was such a mismatch.
Not for me.
