“They Called Us Exceptional and Other Lies That Raised Us” - Prachi Gupta

 — My thoughts about this book are complicated. It is critically acclaimed, and Gupta is a compelling storyteller. But to me, it read like 2 different novels: the first half concerns itself with sociological aspects of the Indian-American experience, and more accurately reflects the dust jacket summary. The 2nd half abandons those notions in favor of psychological and medical aspects of mental healthcare as well as Gupta’s struggle to set boundaries with toxic and/or mentally ill family members. The thesis of the first half is consumed by a (no less important) discussion of mental health; but the abrupt, thematic shift causes the original thesis to become lost.

— TCUE can best be described as a memoir mingled with the author’s sociological analysis of her own experiences. As she goes on, these portions begin to ramble like a college admissions essay or a journal entry, where it feels like Gupta is talking out loud. If it was a bit more cohesive, I would almost consider it a stream of consciousness style, but I don’t think that’s what she was intending.

— TCUE is written as a memoir addressing Gupta’s own mother; this device was well used in the first half. Part of why this memoir felt like 2 novels, is that Gupta abandons this device in the second half.  In the second half, it is jarring when she tosses in a comment addressing her mother directly because that device was lost after being consistently used in the beginning.

— As I’ve said earlier, Gupta is indeed a gifted storyteller. Her memoir style of writing reminds me of a Jhumpa Lahiri or Chitra Divakaruni short story in the subject matter overlap: conflicts between 1st and 2nd generation and the Indian-American immigrant experience. While it’s a memoir, the events of Gupta’s upbringing and young adulthood cause the reader to be white-knuckled throughout: our gut tells us something truly awful lurks beyond every page.

— One area that was of major concern to me, was that in telling her story and her truth, Gupta has made public disclosures of others’ mental health struggles and diagnoses without their consent. Naturally, it would be impossible for her to tell her story otherwise, but it definitely gave me pause.

— I felt the parts of the narrative that were strongest in terms of writing style, were those that more closely resembled a traditional memoir (rather than a philosophical essay). Her frequently rambling and free-wheeling analysis - while certainly raising many valuable points - felt repetitive and lacking in cohesion with the overall framework she set up at the outset.

— While I can’t say I loved it, I can still strongly recommend reading TCUE because despite a writing style that was rambling and disjointed in places, her personal story is painfully compelling and she brings up many important topics - particularly for South Asians. I’d love to discuss this one with anyone who has read it!