How to Break a Girl by Amanda Sung

A vulnerably told story of three soulmates making their way in a world far from home, How to Break a Girl: Whatever doesn’t break you makes you write a novel about it by Amanda Sung is a striking and original novel about the balance between assimilation and identity.

Three Asian-Canadian immigrants – the endearingly awkward Lily, the strong but scarred Aurora, and Elizabeth, the hopeless romantic – are the trio of protagonists at the heart of this novel, each boasting a richly developed backstory and distinctly entertaining personality. Elizabeth fears falling into the same submissive patterns that she did with her father, Aurora wants to stop letting the trauma of her past control the joy of her present, and Lily keeps chasing new versions of happiness, but ends up spiraling into old patterns. Hashing out their dramas over drinks and day trips across a swirl of cities, this is a tale of sisterly solidarity, and its importance through every letdown and triumph in life.

Sung has a masterful aptitude for subtle description, employing an engagingly conversational tone to the prose, which offers flashbacks for immersive character development and cultural revelation. Providing Western readers with a poignant glimpse into less familiar social and relational dynamics, the most powerful themes are also universally relatable: persistence through tragedy, adaptation to dramatic change, and the unconditional camaraderie of one’s chosen family.

Contemporary in style but ageless in its insight, the story is intimately relatable, with prose that is laced with devastating turns of phrase and raw moments of confession, which elevate this work of autofiction above other works about both sisterhood and immigrant life.