Chang, Jade: What a Time to Be Alive

A deeply moving and often hilarious novel following a woman who becomes an internet folk hero in the most unexpected way, catapulting her into fame and influence just as she’s finally beginning to reckon with her complicated past L ola Treasure Gold can’t figure out her life. She’s broke, unemployed, and back in her childhood home, a crumbling cottage in the Hollywood Hills. Worse—unspeakably worse—one of her closest friends has just died. So nobody is more surprised than Lola when a jackpot falls in her lap: she stars in a viral video, opening a surprising path for her to become a self-help guru. With the encouragement of her other best friend, Celi—still alive, thank god—Lola embraces the public interest in her perceived message. But is she a scammer or a sage? Just as Lola is telling others to be their own guiding lights, she can’t seem to find hers: she’s grieving; she’s accused of using the notoriety of her friend’s death to fuel her rise; and she’s full of questions about the fate of her mother, who came to America pregnant, fleeing China’s one-child policy, got deported when Lola was eight, and now has totally disappeared. Driven by an exuberant, searching spirit, Jade Chang’s kaleidoscopic new novel is a deep examination of the ways we commodify belief, the power and precarity of fame, and the delicious terror of being truly seen.  What a Time to Be Alive  asks if we can look honestly at the world and still love it; the answer is a brilliant, resounding yes.