SOURCE: Mong, Adrienne. “The Chosen Person.” Far Eastern Economic Review 159, no. 44 (31 October 1996): 47.

In the following review of Mona in the Promised Land, Mong criticizes Jen's storytelling skills.

In the same irreverent vein as her first novel, Typical American, Gish Jen [in Mona in the Promised Land], continues to chart the life of a Chinese-American family, the Changs—this time through the eyes of teenager Mona. Moving to a posh New York suburb called Scarshill, the Changs unwittingly arrive at a cultural crossroads, where only Mona appreciates the issue of assimilation or rejection. It seems inevitable then that, floating in the experimental froth of the late 1960s, she and her peers would stumble upon a game of racial mix-and-match.

Precipitated by her classmates' discovery of their Jewish roots, Mona's foray into the multi-cultural arena ends up in Judaism. Before she can say goy (Yiddish for gentile), she's participated in...