A NPR, Electric Lit, & Entropy Best Book of the Year. A November Indie Next Pick

“Wu understands the human heart keenly, and her novel is a subtle but powerful triumph.”

–NPR

“A carefully observed and subtly devastating meditation on the often porous lines between work and real life.”

–Vogue

“Wu’s finely crafted sentences and crisp imagery render visceral Willa’s inner disquiet.”

–The New York Times

“Win Me Something is a poignant, impressive debut that should herald the rise of a literary force to be reckoned with.”

–Shondaland

“A dazzling literary debut…I’ve rarely seen a text in the landscape of American letters that speaks so eloquently to the heartbreaking, gorgeous complexity of the Asian American biracial experience.”

—Soapberry Review

“Win Me Something tenderly and masterfully reveals the fury, hope, and longing that come with trying to be seen in a world that never looks for you.”

—Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk

“Wu’s beautifully observed coming-of-age tale is a poignant and lyrical meditation on navigating the world with a fragmented sense of self.”

—Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2021

“In Win Me Something, Kyle Lucia Wu examines the biracial experience with razor sharp precision, nuance, and profound feeling. Her prose radiates off the page, with every color, character, and scrap of food animating the world of this story, all of it asking who, and what, is of value in America? I love the gentle candor of Wu’s prose, the sneaky devastation. Her debut is a resonant knockout.”

—T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

“Win Me Something is an observant, contemplative story about the complex reality of growing up with a mixed identity in two starkly different mixed families. Kyle Lucia Wu deftly weaves back and forth between Willa’s teenaged years and her adult life to explore loneliness, uncertainty, and a singular, persistent question—where do I truly belong?” 

—Crystal Hana Kim, author of If You Leave Me

“[A] compassionate debut…Wu brilliantly lays out the complicated dynamics of love, belonging, and care that exist within all relationships.”

–Publishers Weekly

“Taut, engrossing, and masterfully observed, Win Me Something announces a powerful and luminescent new literary voice in Kyle Lucia Wu.” 

—Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine

“Kyle Lucia Wu’s Win Me Something is groundbreaking in its exploration of blended families and a biracial Asian American consciousness. In subtle but strikingly observed scenes that depict race, class, and lives of having and not having, she explores the secret want that we all have: to belong to something, somewhere. Here we find Willa, a biracial Chinese American narrator seeking to understand where she belongs in the family of things. Here is a prose writer who relishes in the poetry of language. Under Wu’s deft hand, each sentence unfolds like a miracle.” 

—Cathy Linh Che, author of Split

“Like a latter-day Willa Cather, after whom her protagonist is named, Kyle Lucia Wu has written a beautiful novel about a fiercely American young woman whose Americanness is constantly questioned by those around her. This is a sad, funny, and tender coming-of-age story about what family and belonging means for someone who is realizing that she is constantly watched but not truly seen.”

—David Burr Gerrard, author of The Epiphany Machine

“[A] quietly impressive coming-into-adulthood novel…Expect subtle surprises as Willa’s relationships evolve in a satisfying accumulation of carefully drawn small moments that build toward her understanding, even acceptance, of both an imperfect world and herself.”

–Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review