Fiona And Jane

(Paperback)

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A TIME, NPR, VOGUE, OPRAH DAILY, AND VULTURE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR) One of TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2022 "Ho's debut work is the perfect modern example of great American fiction. . . . You will love it." -Jake Tapper "Intimate, cinematic. . . . The world Ho creates between the two women feels like one friend reading the other's story, wishing she were there." -The New York Times Book Review " Fiona and Jane is about an incredible lifelong friendship between two Asian American women growing up in Southern California-absolutely adored that book." -Ailsa Chang, NPR's "All Things Considered" "Intricately rendered. . . . Fiona and Jane celebrates a woman's ability to be late, to show up in their own lives when and where they want to, to change their minds, to be lonely and to be in love, and to be respected regardless." -The Washington Post 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. NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2022 BY VOGUE * USA TODAY * TIME * OPRAH DAILY * PARADE * THE WASHINGTON POST * BUZZFEED * GOOD HOUSEKEEPING * MARIE CLAIRE * FORTUNE * GLAMOUR * W MAGAZINE * NYLON * BUSTLE * POPSUGAR * ELECTRIC LITERATURE * THE RUMPUS * DEBUTIFUL * AND MORE!

Reviews

LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE

A BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK

Ho's debut work is the perfect modern example of great American fiction. It's a brilliant series of stories about the lives of two Taiwanese American women and their friendship over 20 years as they explore identity, sexuality, heartbreak and family secrets...What a great read! I feel like Fiona and Jane are friends of mine. I cannot wait to see what Ho writes next. Fiona and Jane brings you into the lives of these women in a relatable, authentic way. You will love it.
Jake Tapper

Over the course of the book Fiona and Jane become real and electric and precious people. The stories move through intimate, cinematic scenes.. . . The world Ho creates between the two women feels like one friend reading the others story, wishing she were there. . . . [E]ven to those not from Los Angeles, Hos debut collection feels like a shared experience.
Tammy Tarng, The New York Times Book Review

Fiona And Jane captures the textures of female friendship and all the intensity, loyalty, and occasional torment of it.
Ailsa Chang, NPRs All Things Considered

An engaging first book. . . . Secrets and betrayals resound through many of the stories. . . . Theres also an endearing sexual boldness in Fiona and Jane. These are Western women who grew up in the Nineties. . . . Its a vibrant, sexually active world these friendships are acted out in. . . . Emotional accuracy lights up the work. . . . Hos writing evokes youthful folly, ever glorious and stupid, with a shadow of later awareness in the prose.
Joan Silber, The New York Review of Books

Jean Chen Hos debut collection . . . evokes a distinctive multi-ethnic Asian American experience coming of age in Los Angeles in the late 20th century: R&B mixtapes, Cool Water cologne, red faces drunk on soju. . . . Through shifting perspectives and evocative milieus (from night markets to seedy Korean bars and exclusive clubs), the assemblage comes as close to a primer on modern L.A. Asian American rites of passage as anything in recent memory.
Lisa Wong Macabasco, Vogue

Hos strong debut follows two Taiwanese American besties from grade school through their 30s, flipping through decades to highlight key relationships, crises, nights of drinking and sex. Other people, the world and the girls themselves change, but the friendship between beautiful Fiona and sturdy Jane endures.
People

"This sparkling debut collection navigates the intimate contours of female friendship. . . .Ho's granularity and lush detailthe flavor of taquitos, having tender sex with a lover for the last timeare in part why the stories are irresistible. But it's Ho's wisdom and compassion for her characters that make us yearn to stay in her world after we've reached the last page."
Oprah Daily,"Great Reads You Don't Want to Miss"

Fiona and Jane is a refreshingly honest treatment of long-term friendships particularly their inexorable ebb and flow. Story by story, the book captures the way friendships negotiate their own boundaries, at times dissolving unexpectedly and at others flourishing into something more, even if just fleetingly.
Meena Venkataramanan, The Los Angeles Times

A confidently nonlinear debut collection that sluices through the interiority of its protagonists without diminishing the passion and powerfully mysterious intimacy of female friendship.
Vulture, The Best Books of the Year (So Far)

Intricately rendered. . . . Fiona and Jane celebrates a womans ability to be late, to show up in their own lives when and where they want to, to change their minds, to be lonely and to be in love, and to be respected regardless.
Rosa Boshier, The Washington Post

Ho renders both women so real that they begin to feel like people youve encountered and hung out with. . . . Its precisely the fact that the womens trials and tribulations feel refreshingly life-sized that makes the book ring so beautifully, sometimes terribly, true.
Ilana Masad, NPR.org

In a story told in alternating voices, two Taiwanese American women, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen, navigate identity, sexuality and heartbreak over two decades in this intimate exploration of female friendship.
USA Today

[Fiona and Jane] explores the murky layers of female friendship and the meaning of home."
Entertainment Weekly

Thecomplex depth of female friendshipprovides endless fodder for Jean Chen Ho in her debut, Fiona and Jane. Centering on nearly two decades of best friendship between the two titular Taiwanese American women, the [book] reads like a love letter to the beauty and intensity of their relationship. Bonded by their shared experience of coming of age in Los Angeles in immigrant families, Fiona and Janes friendship is challenged over the years by distance, romantic relationships and betrayal. But throughout it all, they are constants in each others livesreminders for one another of who they once were and all that they can be.
Time

This frank and moving debut by Jean Chen Ho, told in short stories from differing eras and perspectives, follows a pair of Taiwanese American best friends as they navigate grief, ambition, and the changing realities of their friendship.
Marie Claire

In Hos debut book of fiction, two childhood best friends growing up in Los Angeles fall in and out of love, navigate estranged family members, and deal with casual racism in these linked short stories about friendship over time.
Tomi Obaro, Buzzfeed

Fiona and Jane are best friends, navigating their tumultuous teenage years together, as well as their family histories and all that comes with them. But when Fiona moves across the country, their bond weakens and threatens to break. This [book] about the power of female friendship will give you a gorgeous peek into both women's perspectives ona sharedstory that has as many facets as they do.
Good Housekeeping

Spanning the globe and 20 years offriendship, two Taiwanese-American women grow up, grow apart and grow together in love, secrets,griefand heartbreak.
Parade

A beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking story about the lives of two Asian American girls and how they navigate everything from same-sex relationships to parent loss and beyond.
Zibby Owens, Katie Couric Media

Have you had one of those friendships that served you for many, many years but now exists only in the past tense Fiona and Jane, Taiwanese girls living in Los Angeles, were best friends all throughout childhood, high school, and college. Then [Fiona] moves away, and like so many long friendships, theirs evaporates. Ten years later we meet them just in that tender, terrifying moment of reconnecting.
Glamour

Multi-decade friendship books are hard to pull off and Jean Chen Hos debut collection Fiona and Jane is a splendid addition to the genre. Expansive and intimate, it traces the titular characters coming of age across Taiwan, Southern California, and New York City. Even in the expansive scope of these singular stories, she draws our attention to unseen intimacies both tender and cruel between friends, family, and lovers.
Benedict Nguyn, BOMB

Virtuosic. . . . A tender portrait of female friendship in all its complexity and depth. . . . Hos writing is so vivid, witty and warm that after finishing Fiona and Jane, readers will miss these characters like their own best friends.
Mike Alberti, The Star Tribune

Intimate and irreverent. . . . Hos stories tackle themes of identity, shame, grief, sexuality and the intensity and complexity of female friendship.
Victoria Namkung, NBC Asian American

A fierce debut. . . . We follow Fiona Lin and Jane Shen across time zones and through a whirlwind of settings: a night market in Taipei, a hospital room in New York City, a greasy Korean bar in Garden Grove. Against a backdrop of familial tension and messy romances, Fiona and Jane navigate their burgeoning sexualities, grapple with inherited traumas, and struggle with the aftermath of impulsive decisions. . . . The stories are also saturated with queerness. . . . At the same time, Fiona and Jane doesnt shy away from the brutal complexities of queer life.
Ariel Chu, them.

A wonderful debut. . . .[Fiona and Jane] is a book that is built on memory, a book that speaks to the importance and difficulties and richness of friendship between women over time, a book that braids its form and content together to create meaning.
Laura Spence-Ash, Ploughshares

A tender portrait of female friendship. Its about two Taiwanese American women, Fiona and Jane longtime best friends whose relationship is strained when life scatters them to opposite coasts. The story spans decades as they grow together and apart, navigating love, death, complicated families and heartbreak.
The Washington Post

Two young Taiwanese women navigate friendship and sexuality in this 20-year narrative. Living in New York and Los Angeles, Fiona and Jane tell alternating stories about what it's like to be Asian in America, the bonds of friendship as girls become women and what loyalty truly means.
Zibby Owens, Good Morning America online<

Author Bio

Jean Chen Ho is a doctoral candidate in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California, where she is a Dornsife Fellow in fiction. She has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and her writing has been published in The Georgia Review, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Guernica, The Rumpus, Apogee, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and others. She was born in Taiwan, grew up in Southern California, and lives in Los Angeles.