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Rating: 
Summary: An interesting perspective
Review: A fascinating story of 3 generations of Chinese/Taiwanese women. Chen beautifully paints a contrast between the older generation and her young self on a personal journey to discover her roots. What makes this book so wonderful is that Chen not only tells of the difficult journey from Taiwan to America but also the battle of thoughts and emotions that take place in their hearts.
Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre
Review: Ever since the Joy Luck Club came out, it seems like "Asian heritage" books have been everywhere. I can't get into many of them - not entirely sure why - but this book is one of the exceptions.This story rings very true for me. My mother went to the Taipei high school where the four main characters meet, and this is what first drew me to the book. It was like finding out about her life though I'd never been able to ask the right questions (a process described early in the narrative, too). And I can see parts of my growing up reflected in most of the second-generation characters. But I like this book mainly for its wisdom, for the perspective Chang has gained through the process of writing these stories and how she shares that with the reader. It reminds me about the freedom we have here, to define our dreams however we want and do all we can to pursue them. (We're not forced to study biochemistry just because we're good students, and our culture helps give us the courage to change careers if we're not satisfied.) It's also interesting to see how the parents' experiences affect their children's lives in this area. Wei goes to New York to be a dancer, and Peter tries to pursue public policy instead of medical school. There's a line about a father who was so American that he encouraged his child "to go to Oberlin instead of Harvard" - perfectly characterized, I thought. I thought this book was nicely written, other than the occasional awkward foreshadowing. The stories do jump around, but this is inevitable, and they are described clearly enough that they really aren't too hard to follow. This is a relatively quick read, and definitely worth it - it paints an accurate picture of both generations' lives in the U.S. and throws in a nice China/Taiwan history lesson as well. It's definitely among my favorite "Chinese" books now, along with Mona in the Promised Land (Gish Jen) and Legacies (Bette Bao Lord).
Rating: 
Summary: Very good story, I can relate to these women
Review: I can relate to this story. The places that she mentioned were familiar to me, I had the same experience and background. I read the book over and over because I was afraid to miss the details. I can understand the differences between east and west coast Chinese women. Their roles are very different and the family/communities are very different. Certain parts in the beginning were confusing, and it may be difficult for Americans to understand how Chinese people feel about education and the responsiblity to themselves, as well as their families. There were many examples of pride, and family culture that I could relate to. I am waiting for her to write another story about her generation and their contributions to US and their own Chinese background - their "Chinese-ness"
Rating:
Summary: Not beyond narrow minded
Review: I'm thoroughly dissappointed with this book. The voice Leslie Chang writes in is so utterly pretentious it is hard to find a clear perspective of the meat of this book. It is totally unrewarding to be fed quote after quote of "famous" poets, mathematicians, philosophers and so on that seem completely out of context and in the end add nothing to the reading experience but to leave the reader questioning what Miss Chang was hoping to convey through their use. The anecdotes and stories of these women are loosely strung together so that it seems that the author really didn't have enough material to flesh out a novel length expose so was forced to garner everything she learned through her Literature studies to try to beef this work up and make it seem poignant in the end. The problem is, the subject matter is poignant, and in a few cases in Beyond the Narrow Gate, such as the depiction of the class reunion in Hawaii, we are given insight into the immigrant experience that is of interest and is well put together by the author. But somehow, Miss Chang squanders what she has to work with and beleaguers the reader with a very convoluted essay that serves to bring to light her limited perspective and limitations as a writer moreso than it does to tell an objective historical tale set against two very different worlds. We keep being reminded by Miss Chang that she was desperately in search of a topic to write about. Unfortunately for us, in her desperation, she strived too hard to be of literary merit and didn't allow the stories of these women to have a life of their own in the written word. For a very in depth look at the Chinese immigrant experience across the globe, their drives, passions and several well developed personal short biographies, read Sons of the Yellow Emperor by Lynn Pan. For a very personal look at one woman's life that in many ways mirrors the experiences of the women in Beyond the Narrow Gate, read Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah. I have great hopes for Leslie Chang. This was her first work, and since she chose to write about several women perhaps she made it more difficult on herself to maintain focus. But I can't help to think that if you've got four Chinese women who immigrated to America at different times and under different circumstances, you have got to have a wealth of good subject matter to delve into and Miss Chang didn't seem to delve into much more than herself in this particular work.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting journey of four women
Review: Leslie Chang as elegantly put into print the experience of my parents' generation. I, too, am a second generation American Born Chinese. I don't believe my parents intentionally hid their past from us, but with the language and cultural differences, the picture wasn't always so clear. But it all seems so much clearer now, having read Leslie's book ... and I consider myself nearly fluent in spoken Mandarin. The book has been instrumental in helping my parents and I to talk about our experiences even more. Her meticulous description of her mother in the booth trying on all those shoes ... was so graphic, so clear and so real ... I could hear the crowd whispering. It was little scenes like that, which really brought the reality of it all home ... that this happened to real people. This book talks more about the China, the Chinese and the life that I and many of the other American Born Chinese (ABC) friends that I'd grown up with are familiar with. I've been waiting for a book that shared my feelings, experience and thoughts and I feel that I have found it here. Thank you, Leslie, for all your research and your magic pen!
Rating:
Summary: Everyone born between 1935-1975 should read this book
Review: Leslie Chang as elegantly put into print the experience of my parents' generation. I, too, am a second generation American Born Chinese. I don't believe my parents intentionally hid their past from us, but with the language and cultural differences, the picture wasn't always so clear. But it all seems so much clearer now, having read Leslie's book ... and I consider myself nearly fluent in spoken Mandarin. The book has been instrumental in helping my parents and I to talk about our experiences even more. Her meticulous description of her mother in the booth trying on all those shoes ... was so graphic, so clear and so real ... I could hear the crowd whispering. It was little scenes like that, which really brought the reality of it all home ... that this happened to real people. This book talks more about the China, the Chinese and the life that I and many of the other American Born Chinese (ABC) friends that I'd grown up with are familiar with. I've been waiting for a book that shared my feelings, experience and thoughts and I feel that I have found it here. Thank you, Leslie, for all your research and your magic pen!
Rating:
Summary: An interesting journey of four women
Review: This book was a good read. As a third generation chinese-american born in the US, I have found books like Leslie's very rewarding. It is informative to learn about the lives of chinese people who came to the US with dreams of making it after leaving their homeland. The story is a little tough to follow at times as the lives of four different women are vividly described in different chapters. However, I think after the first couple of chapters, each of the characters are described well enough that it is manageable to follow. I was thoroughly engaged in reading how each woman all lived their own lives, but yet were drawn back together at a later time when they met for a reunion. The story is much less about how they struggled to come to the US (although it was for these women) but more about their personal lives. I often wonder about how chinese and chinese-american people cope with living in America when this land is not their first-native place. This is the real meat of the book. It gives a glimpse of the world through their eyes. I find it amazing how much the author has gone into detail and found all of this information. Its too bad these four women never had a chance to come together more while in the US. For me, this book provides a link between the generation of chinese who came from China to my generation that were born and raised here. I hope that other american-born chinese will also find this link as well.
Rating:
Summary: Narative history was a great aid to understanding
Review: This book was awesome to read, a real tour de force on the human emotion. Anyone who wants to get a good and accurate picture of the Asian-American experience, especially those of the early Chinese immigrants who came to this country should read this book. Leslie Chang does a phenomenal job in evoking the triumphs and tribulations of these Chinese women who fought to find their place in America, to succeed despite all obstacles and the struggle to raise their children with both the Chinese and American tradition, constantly wondering what the best combination should be. Leslie mentions "bamboo generation," this description is very appropriate, and to find out what she means by this, read this book, b/c by its end, you will know what the term means.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Review: This is not a terrible book. But it's not a good one either--especially in a field that has so many extraordinarily well-written memoirs (like "Wild Swans").
"Beyond the Narrow Gate"'s lack of originality and style are its biggest problems. The author is telling a story that has been told many times before. Although Chang's women immigrants are better-off financially than the immigrants most memoirs are about, that fact actually makes "Narrow Gate" LESS interesting, because the women's hardships are less stark, more psychological than physical, and thus extremely difficult for Change to adequately convey.
Chang's writing style is unexceptional. Her words do not draw the reader in, and there is a lack of complementarity between the story Chang is trying to tell and the words she uses to tell it with. Her language could be much richer, her descriptions more textured (adjectival phrases are our friends!). Worse, this story, of which the personal impact for the author is constantly reiterated, is not told in an intimate manner or with any sense of humor whatsoever. The telling is extremely straightforward, with too few embellishments and too little intimacy, which is off-putting, to say the least.
There are also some smaller, but similarly irritating problems. First, this book touts itself as a record of four Chinese women's journey to America. In fact, that story is recounted as a background for excessive odes to Chang's mother that are not related to the story. There are frequent and redundant discussions of Chang's mother's exuberance in life, complete with unnecessary anecdotes that are neither contributory nor all that interesting.
Also, especially in the first half of the book, Chang goes into long tangents about poets, such as the rather obscure Wallace Stevens, or earlier American authors. She tries to weave their experiences into the story of the Chinese immigrants' experiences--to what end, I have no clue. The device merely irritated me.
Chang jumps between spaces, time, and characters in a wholly disconcerting manner. It's never made clear why certain characters, like Suzanne and Delores, feature heavily in some chapters and not others, since the book is not written in a consistent chronology. Chang also throws in a lot about herself as she was doing the research for the book--half of one chapter is devoted to a visit to an old priest in New York, who doesn't even remember Chang's mother. For a book that's supposed to be about the elder Chang's immigration experience, there is an excess of anecdotes about the author's research-related experiences.
Last, Chang's insistence on writing out the character's exact words, no matter how broken their English, is annoying. Most children of immigrants, while acknowledging that their parents' English is nonstandard, have grown up hearing that version of English and therefore it sounds natural to them, and not broken. Therefore, Chang could still be true to her subjects by recording their speech as standard English, because that's how their children actually understand them. The broken English is very hard to read and takes away from the seriousness both of Chang's subject and often of the conversations that are being recorded.
Overall, like I said, this isn't a TERRIBLE book. If it dealt with a topic that had fewer volumes already written on it--say, for example, the Thai or Hmong immigrant experience--I would actually give this book another star. But the Chinese immigrant experience is one that has already been recorded in some of the best tomes of this century, and so I don't think readers should waste their time with as mediocre a book as "Beyond the Narrow Gate."
Rating: 
Summary: Poorly written but it was helpful
Review: Unfortunately this book was written very poorly. Author swings from one end to another trying to catch a big fish. However she is a good observer and takes you into the complicated relations of four women with their families. She described well each woman during different time periods of their life in China, Taiwan, and USA. Unfortunately, this book consists of many small stories of each of them. There is no main story. However I found it helpful as well.
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