Breakaway Books

Authored by Katie Yee; Published July 2025; Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you described Maggie; Or a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar to me, I would have told you that it is simply not my cup of tea–too depressing, and not nearly enough action. And I would have been wrong.

In Maggie, the unnamed narrator’s life begins to fall apart when her husband leaves her for another woman and she is diagnosed with breast cancer. As she deals with these simultaneous blows, she muses on the legacy she is leaving her children, the importance of her Chinese heritage, and the stories she wants them to remember. It sounds like a tough read, but the narrator infuses the story with surprising humor.

I love books with action—thrillers, mysteries, romance, even science fiction and fantasy usually have their share of big events. Maggie is much quieter, but I found myself enjoying spending time with the narrator. She is honest; she is funny; she is smart. She and her best friend Darlene have the kind of supportive friendship that adult women dream of. Her relationship with her husband sours right at the beginning of the book, and in spite of the fact that he acts like a privileged, rich jerk, she doesn’t spend the pages of this novel bashing him. No, instead, she examines the situation with more wit and introspection than I believe I would have been capable of.

As the narrator struggles with her illness and her legacy, she reveals more and more of the stories that she tells her children. These stories are one of the most interesting elements of the novel—I had never been exposed to Chinese myths before, but this book exposed me to some of the more interesting tales and certainly whetted my appetite. The narrator takes the myths and re-shapes them, helping her children take in not only the outlandish events of the fables but also the lessons they can take to heart as they grow up. Embedded in these lessons, we can see the narrator ponder how her children will deal with growing up biracial, caught between two cultures and two very different socioeconomic classes. All of a sudden, these bedtime stories gain a greater weight. The combination of the narrator’s humor and her reflective nature make for a truly special book.

Maggie is a quieter novel than my usual ones, but I’m glad I read it. You will be too.