Tiger Babies Strike Back
How I Was Raised by a Tiger Mom but Could Not Be Turned to the Dark Side
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
An answer to Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, author Kim Wong Keltner’s Tiger Babies Strike Back takes the control-freak beast by the tail with a humorous and honest look at the issues facing women today—Chinese-American and otherwise.
Keltner, the author of the novels Buddha Baby and I Want Candy, mines her own past in an attempt to dispel the myth that all Chinese women are Tiger Mothers. Keltner strikes back at Chua’s argument through topics, including “East Meets West in the Board Room and the Bedroom,” and “I Was Raised by a Tiger Mom and All I Got Was this Lousy T-Shirt: A Rebuttal to Chua.”
Through personal anecdotes and tough-love advice, Keltner’s witty and forthright opinions evoke an Asian-American Sex and the City, while showing how our families shape our personal worlds.
What happens when the daughter of a Tiger Mom grows up and decides to talk back?
The Chinese American Experience: Keltner mines her own hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking past to push back against the myth of the model minority and the control-freak Tiger Mom.Cultural Identity: A witty, unflinching look at navigating life between two cultures, evoking an Asian-American Sex and the City for a new generation.Generational Differences: Through tough-love advice and sharp personal anecdotes, this memoir explores the gap between immigrant parents and their American-born children.A Witty Rebuttal: The perfect answer for anyone who read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and thought, "That’s not the whole story."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The message behind novelist Keltner's first nonfiction book is clear: she wasn't given enough love as a child and she's determined not to repeat that same mistake with her daughter, Lucy. As a Chinese-American raised by a "Tiger Mother," she has ample material to demonstrate her chilly upbringing, and offers plenty of wrenching anecdotes about, and pointed barbs towards, her mother. However, she answers the uproar over Amy Chua's 2011 Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother with more of a whine, repeatedly hashing out her mommy issues with dramatic cries of anger mixed with half-hearted attempts at maternal sympathy now that she's a mother herself. There is a tendency towards clich d, cutesy language, and misplaced humor that undermines the entire project; Keltner frequently resorts to short zingers or pop-culture references immediately following a raw emotional description. For example, after recounting her mother's response to being confronted about spanking her children, Keltner (The Dim Sum of All Things) employs an unfortunate use of one-liners like "Um, yeah," "What now, genius?," and "So sue me." Keltner's constant plea for an emotional awakening from her fellow tiger babies is perhaps too well-realized; ironically, in this well-intentioned but scattered work, the heart of the issue is blotted out by over-emotionalism.
