Elaine's debut memoir is an honest, vulnerable and authentic reflection on what it means to find one's place in the world, literally and metaphorically. While her journey from Hong Kong to Hawaii to Los Angeles and finally, Silicon Valley is both a common one and uniquely hers, the themes of financial struggles, complicated family dynamics, and the experiences and people who shape who we become will resonate with a wide range of readers. Elaine's ability to recall small moments and conversations with remarkable clarity and perspective brings her story to life with just the right blend of humor, self-deprecation and poignancy.

Ugly Dumpling chronicles Elaine Hsieh Yu’s life, from moving from Hong Kong to Honolulu at the age of four, then to East Los Angeles, and eventually to Silicon Valley, where she raises her children. Her story is one of poverty, hardship, family dysfunction, identity, and the lasting effects of generational trauma.

This is an incredibly detailed account of Elaine’s life, as well as that of her parents and brothers. Her memories are remarkable, and she doesn't shy away from the difficult parts of her childhood: growing up in poverty, an absent and sometimes violent father, a mother struggling with her own mental health, and the complicated experiences of being an immigrant and trying to find a sense of identity and belonging.

There are so many layers to this family’s story — trauma, secrets, shame, mental illness, poverty, and the ways in which difficult experiences can be passed from one generation to the next. I was particularly struck by the way Elaine explores her mother’s own history and the fact that, as the daughter of a servant, she was never valued in the way a son would have been. She also explores her father's experience as an escapee from China in the 50s.

The book is extremely readable, with short chapters and beautifully articulated memories.

I think the title is very apt, and by the end, I felt that Elaine had thoroughly achieved what she set out to do: to tell her story honestly and without shying away from the uncomfortable parts.

This book will appeal particularly to readers who enjoy memoirs about family, immigration, identity, generational trauma, and the complicated relationships between parents and children.

I received an advance review copy from NetGalley, and this is my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Victory Editing, Resolve Editions, and Forefront Books for this advanced reader copy. I am very grateful for the opportunity.

Ugly Dumpling is an honest and moving memoir that spans nearly five decades. The reader follows along with a family of five, two parents and three children. Elaine, the youngest child and author of this memoir, recounts her life starting in Hawaii. Elaine has a sharp memory and can recount the big move from Hong Kong to Hawaii at the young age of four years old. From Elaine’s eyes, she sees her parents fighting. Her dad abandoning the family, and leaving them stranded in Hawaii. She sees her mother struggle with mental health issues, and the constant fight to keep a job due to these issues. Her older brothers were distant and could be mean to her, they were just kids trying to figure life out as well. Over the course of the memoir, we see the struggles this family has faced, and our narrator’s determination for a better life for her and her mother.

The writing in this memoir is detailed, honest, raw and heartbreaking. It covers topics of mental health, immigration, financial instability, racism, divorce, and most importantly, unwavering love. This unwavering love is seen with Elaine and her mother, the love she has for her brothers, her father, and when she's older the family she builds. The author has truly inspired me with the perseverance she’s had throughout her life. It was not easy, however she remained determined, kind and loving at the end of the day.

This book was easy to read, and kept me wanting more after each page. The chapters were at good length.

This book is perfect for readers that are interested in memoirs about family, immigration, generational trauma, and complicated relationships between parents and their children.

On a personal note, this book made me reflect on my own family's story. There were topics within that made me feel seen, and I highly appreciated this read. I definitely cried reading this book, it was touching and made me appreciate my family more. Thank you Elaine for sharing your story.

Ugly Dumpling is a well-written memoir which tackles some weighty themes including mental health, poverty, family dysfunction, and the immigrant experience, all presented with incredible grace and readability. The chapters are short, but each one presents a distinct and vivid slice of Elaine’s life from early childhood up to the present, although the majority of the book centers on her years before college. I breezed through the first half of the book on a trans-Pacific red-eye flight (I probably should have been sleeping but couldn’t put it down) and finished the second half in a single afternoon the following weekend. I can’t remember the last time I read a book in only two sittings. As a Chinese-American of similar age who also spent my formative years in California, I expected that we shared some common experiences, and it was fun to see cultural references (Love Boat!) which I hadn’t thought about for years. But this is book is so, so much more than a simple recollection of her journey to where she is today. Elaine does a masterful job capturing the complex dynamics of her family and painting an unfiltered, affectionate portrait of her mother, and her ability to recall moments from decades ago with such clarity is stunning. I would highly recommend Ugly Dumpling for anyone who loves deep, honest family stories, or simply just wants to dive into a great book by a promising new author.

A beautiful, moving memoir about a life. Spanning 3 generations, Elaine tells the story of family. From moving to Hawaii at only 4 years old, to overcoming adversaries, and finding beauty exactly where it is.

This book moved me, I haven’t read such a beautiful story about the ways life can treat a person. When I finished I just said wow, wow because through all this hardship, there’s beauty, love, and so much emotion.

The way Elaine recollects and writes about her story is amazing. It’s incredibly well written, and reads quite smoothly. It’s visible how hard the struggle is as she’s growing up, to have little wins, and eventually build a family of her own.

A thank you to Netgalley for sharing this novel with me.

Ugly Dumpling is a beautifully honest and emotional memoir. Elaine Yu shares her story with so much vulnerability, while also bringing humor and heart to some very difficult experiences. I loved seeing how her story unfolded and how the broken pieces of her past shaped the woman and mother she became. If you enjoy memoirs like Crying in H Mart, I think you’ll really connect with this one. A moving story of family, resilience, and finding your way.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“I wasn’t the kind of kid people stayed for.”
✨
I always rate memoirs 5 stars. It is such a vulnerable experience to go through twice for the author. And then sharing it with the world has to be an emotional roller coaster.
The cover is beautiful (kintsugi). The mended glass symbolizes healing, beauty in imperfections, mending broken areas and resilience. It represents the memoir perfectly.
🥟 I found myself in your shoes at times. And it serves as a reminder that we all have stories and it cost nothing to treat people with kindness. And we’re all just together floating on a giant rock. This book is a warm hug to those who’ve never felt enough despite pouring from an empty cup.

Ugly Dumpling by Elaine Hsieh Yu
✨Asian American coming-of-age
✨Family Trauma/Mental Health
✨Poverty/Redemption
✨out March 16, 2027

Thank you, NetGalley for the advanced copy.
Goodreads: Brenda (Jadore_2Read)

Elaine grew up with her mother, and her two brothers. Her dad was present sporadically, her family moved from Hong Kong to Hawaii, and California.

She talks about the family financial struggles, her mom’s mental health, she recalls an episode when her mother visited one of her school friend late at night and begged the other mom for a letter to help her keep her job.

Her memoir is moving, as it is the story of many others. Elaine manages to set boundaries with her family to protect herself and her kids, but still has a relationship with her own mother and brothers.

A beautiful eye opening read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Resolve Editions for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I was drawn to this book after reading the blurb and being Chinese myself. Elaine’s story is an incredibly emotional one and I found myself shedding tears throughout.

Although I am a third generation immigrant with my grandparents and mum moving to the UK as refugees and my dad moving from Hong Kong in his teens, there was still so much I could relate to.

The racist comments she experienced in her childhood were the same that I had also experienced in the 90s and 00s. I cried for Elaine and my younger self.

What was truly beautiful in Elaine’s memoir was how everything came back full circle for her. Through all the adversity she faced, she overcame so much hardship to be able to protect and support her family. It was so wonderful to see and truly inspiring.

I was graciously given an advanced reader copy of Ugly Dumpling by Elaine Hsieh Yu through NetGalley, and I truly did not expect to become this invested in her life. By the time she reached college, I was basically her number one fan and wanted to be her friend.

This memoir is raw in the best way. Elaine doesn’t shy away from showing the ugly alongside the beautiful. We follow her from a little girl growing up in poverty, often having to be far more independent and strong than any child should have to be, through so many different stages of her life.

One of the things that struck me most was just how incredibly smart and naturally gifted she was. Whether it was coding, creating her own game, music, or something entirely new, she seemed to pick up skills so easily. And yet, time and again, circumstances outside of her control interrupted those opportunities. It was heartbreaking to see so much potential collide with poverty, instability, and racism.

I also couldn’t stop thinking about the way poverty could be both visible and completely invisible. There were moments when Elaine obviously stood apart from the children around her because of what she didn’t have. At other times, she could have looked like any other girl walking through school while no one around her had any idea what was waiting for her at home. It was such a reminder that we really don’t know what someone is carrying just by looking at them.

And somewhere along the way, I stopped simply feeling for Elaine and started genuinely rooting for her. I wanted every opportunity for this little girl. Every win felt exciting, and every loss felt personal.

Also, a word of advice: don’t read Chapter 29 in public. I made that mistake. Sob central.

What ultimately made me love this memoir so much was getting to follow such a large span of Elaine’s life. Things come full circle in ways that allow her—and us—to look back at her childhood with an understanding she couldn’t possibly have had while she was living it. Relationships become more complicated, more tender, and more human. Sometimes the people who fail us can also love us, and sometimes it takes years to understand the full story.

Ugly Dumpling is exactly that: the ugly and the beautiful, side by side. It’s about poverty, racism, family, resilience, opportunity, and the things we understand differently once we’re old enough to look back.

I absolutely loved it—and after spending all these pages with Elaine, I’m still rooting for her.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy in exchange for me my honest review. Ugly Dumpling is currently expected to publish in March 2027.

Ugly Dumpling is a beautiful memoir which is simultaneously hard to put down and challenging to read. Elaine Yu is a Chinese immigrant to America, who at times struggled with feeling neither part of one of the cultures, nor the other. She is a daughter, to a loving mother with mental health problems and an absentee father. She is a sister, a wife, a mother. She is relied upon at an extremely young age and this shaped her life to mean all her decisions were in service of her family.

The voice in Yu's memoir is the most striking part; rather than hearing her story as a woman speaking about the past, you believe she's the age she's writing from. In early chapters she's naive, easily scared, and inquisitive, and later on we hear her parental influence affect how she raises her children. It's incredibly touching to be let into someone's inner thoughts so authentically, especially given the topics she covers are so sensitive. By the end of the novel you feel both proud of Yu for what she achieved, as well as wanting to give her a hug for what she had to experience to get there.

This was incredibly addictive to read and I definitely recommend it to anyone who understands that necessity to grow up quickly because circumstances make it so.

Thanks again to Forefront Books and Netgalley for this ARC

I did not expect Ugly Dumpling to hit me this hard. Reading about Elaine growing up with poverty, family problems, and having to deal with things no child should have to worry about genuinely hurt, especially knowing how much potential she had but how often life got in the way. I think what got me the most was how normal everything could look from the outside when so much was happening at home, because you really never know what someone is going through. And the last few chapters??? Literally blurry because I was CRYING 😭 this memoir cut me deep, and I definitely won’t forget it anytime soon.

Ugly Dumpling by Elaine Yu is an unforgettable memoir of transcending your childhood trauma to thrive and succeed no matter what. Born in Hong Kong to a mother with mental health issues and a mostly absentee father, the family moves to Hawaii at a young age and lived in abject poverty. Here, Elaine deals with a mother who chants in a room, only cooks canned chili with rice daily, and is on welfare and can barely keep the family afloat. As she goes to school, she sees how much different her life is than the others around her. Despite all of this, she forges ahead and works hard to overcome her home living situation. She is given donations of old clothes to wear, another teacher has compassion and takes minutes to comb out the tangles in her hair for school picture day. This book is reminiscent of The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls as far as the trauma, poverty, and abuse she encountered in her early life.

All of this gave Elaine the drive and grit and determination to succeed. She taught her solve to solve a Rubik’s cube, played competitive volleyball, gets into Stanford on a full ride scholarship, and puts her intelligence and drive to the test by taking an Electrical Engineering track. Then she returns for a Masters! Throughout her life, her brothers also had to survive the trauma of their shared childhood and abuse, and deal with situations as well as they could.

I loved the writing about Hawaii, and the reference to the song Honolulu City Lights, as I was born and raised in Hawaii and fondly remember the era in which she was raised. The way Elaine overcame the hardship in her life to build a family despite her broken and damaged family upbringing was inspirational and gave me a feeling of hope and joy. This was the best memoir I have read this year!

Thanks to Elaine Yu and Forefront books for this advanced reader copy.

I recently read Ugly Dumpling by Elaine Hsieh Yu and it is definitely one I would recommend!

Elaine and her family moved to Hawai'i from China when she was a young girl and her parents almost immediately separated and divorced following this major relocation. She lived primarily with her mother and two brothers and was moved from Hawai'i to California while she was in elementary school - another major life adjustment. Her father was at times a part of her life, but generally was out of the picture and when he was around he was very unsupportive and critical of his children. Elaine was extremely resilient and quite independent, always looking for ways to work through difficult situations. She experienced poverty, food insecurity, neglect, physical violence, racism, bullying, and many other adverse childhood and adolescent experiences, including navigating her mother and brother's undiagnosed or treated mental health challenges. This is definitely a memoir of strength, survival and resilience, while also being an opportunity to look at the life of first generation immigrants and the experiences of Chinese-Americans in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it. Elaine's openness in recounting some incredibly difficult experiences made for a moving and often compelling story. Even the embarrassing and chaotic moments became part of what made her story so memorable; you feel so much sympathy for this poor girl, while also able to see the glimmers of hope and humour at times. It is described as Beautiful Country (Qian Julie Wang )and The Glass Castle (Jeanette Walls), I'd agree with that and I would also say it has moments of similarity to Crying in H Mart (Michelle Zauner) (with less food) and The Manicurist's Daughter (Susan Lieu). The Asian-American experiences and the challenges with relating to their parents and also their peers, plus trauma and loss, are common themes. If you've read any of those four books, I'd definitely recommend picking this one up!

It comes out in spring 2027! Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review this book!

Ugly Dumpling is a very honest and personal memoir, covering family, poverty, immigration, mental health, identity and growing up between different cultures. Elaine shares her journey from being a child whose family moved from Hong Kong to Hawai‘i, through a difficult childhood and complicated family relationships, and into her adult life.

What stood out to me most was how open Elaine is about her past. There are some really tough parts, especially when it comes to her parents and her mother’s mental health, and you can see how much those experiences affected her as she grew up. But it isn’t all sadness. There are funny and warm moments too, which I really liked and made the story feel more real.

I also found myself thinking about how much we carry with us from childhood, even when we think we’ve moved on. Elaine’s determination to build a different life for herself and her own family really came through, and I liked seeing how her experiences shaped the person she became.

The writing is easy to follow and very conversational. It felt like Elaine was simply sitting down and telling me her story rather than trying to make everything sound perfect, and I think that worked really well for a memoir. It made the more emotional parts feel even more genuine.

A really interesting, emotional and honest memoir about family, finding your own way and learning to understand where you came from. I’m glad I had the chance to read it.

Thank you NetGalley, Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op and the author Elaine Hsieh Yu for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Publishing date: March 16th 2027

okay wait. this is actually the first memoir I've ever read voluntarily, and it completely ruined me in the best way possible.

​if you're picturing a dry, boring biography that reads like a history assignment, throw that thought away. Elaine’s writing is so vivid it feels like you're literally sitting in the back of the room watching her grow up, moving from Hong Kong to Hawaii, and trying to navigate a seriously chaotic household.
​what stands out is how she handles the heavy stuff (poverty, strict family dynamics, and feeling invisible) without making it feel like a sob story. she writes with this sharp, dry humor that just captures how kids naturally normalize toxic or stressful situations because they don't know any other reality yet.
​it’s fast, deeply personal, and stays in your head long after you finish the last page. if you're trying to branch out into non-fiction and want something that actually holds your attention, start right here.

I really enjoyed this candid and refreshing memoir. Elaine Hsieh Yu tells the story of her childhood and coming of age, while also reflecting on her life in her 50s, when she is raising grown children of her own.

At four years old, Elaine moved from Hong Kong to Hawaii with her mother and two older brothers. Her father helped the family move to the US but remained an on-and-off presence throughout her childhood and adolescence. Her mother struggled with mental health issues and was often unable to provide the guidance Elaine needed. Elaine was frequently left to fend for herself, felt embarrassed by her mother, and eventually had to take care of her as well. Her determination to do well at school, get a job, and achieve financial security was largely driven by her desire to be able to support her mother.

Her coming-of-age story reminded me at times of *David Copperfield* and *Demon Copperhead*, both of which I read this year. Like those characters, Elaine grows up without much parental guidance, even though her mother is present and loving. Her story also made me think more broadly about the experiences of immigrant children. When parents struggle with the language and navigating a new country, children can end up taking on the roles of translators, guides, and even parents themselves.

The memoir also explores intergenerational trauma and healing. Elaine's parents had both experienced trauma and unhappy childhoods, and Elaine herself tried to give her own children everything she had lacked growing up—sometimes putting unnecessary pressure on them in the process.

Elaine worked incredibly hard, but she also encountered a few "angels" along the way who supported and encouraged her, helping her eventually get into prestigious Stanford. I could relate strongly to her experience of imposter syndrome when she found herself surrounded by students from prestigious schools. Although my circumstances are very different from hers, many of her feelings were surprisingly familiar to me. I also related to her realization that what she considered success in her teens and twenties is not necessarily what she considers success in middle age.

The book was very easy to read, and I was particularly impressed by how convincingly Yu adjusts her voice to reflect Elaine at different ages. The voice of little Elaine felt especially authentic.

Overall, *Ugly Dumpling* is a thoughtful, honest, and very readable memoir about family, immigration, ambition, trauma, and finding your own definition of success.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an early reader e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Elaine Hsieh Yu has written an engaging, easy to read memoir.
Whilst the themes can be tough, poverty and mental health amongst them, this doesn't feel a low energy or saddening tale. Threaded through there is a continual optimism, which is clearly a trait of the author's. Even recounting scenes of embarrassment, at the hand of her mother, Hsieh Yu appears to value this relationship highly. I couldn't help but feel I wanted to know more about the emotions of this experience. It felt a well described overview of life, growing up in hardship, but didn't always feel like it fully connected to the lived experience of this.

I enjoyed the recounting of the different relationships that the author encountered throughout her life, both familial and within the wider community. The role of 'a village' in raising a child comes through clearly here, with many of the cast of Elaine Hsieh Yu's formative years clearly having an indelible impact on the woman she was able to grow to be. This felt a real strength of this memoir- a great representation of how even relatively small acts can impact a life.

Seeing the path that she carved out for herself was also refreshing. As someone who grew up in an environment which was often ruled by the moods or wants of others, it was clear that Elaine still felt able to make her own decisions. Moving out, to prestigious Stanford University, marked the start of a chapter where Elaine was able to follow paths that weren't always well trodden, but which fit her and made sense within her knowledge of self.

This memoir gives cultural insight and provides the portrait of both a family, a young woman and the environments that impacted her. I read this quickly and was always happy to re-immerse myself. It felt realistic at it's heart, not romanticising any elements and also showing the long reaching effects, such as how Elaine's own maternal experiences have impacted her own experience raising a family.
It would have been wonderful to gain a slightly deeper insight in some aspects, but it feels like this memoir sensitively handles big topics and ensures people are represented with respect and dignity.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC, in exchange for review.