The Satisfaction Café: A Novel
National Bestseller
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post
Named a Best Book of the Summer by People, Oprah Daily, and Today
A LibraryReads Top 10 Pick
How do we live so that we are satisfied? How can people connect during moments of loneliness? This is the story of Joan Liang, a woman who moves across the world to America, and in trying to answer these questions builds a wildly original life.
Joan’s life is a series of unexpected events: she never thought she would live in California, nor did she expect her first marriage to implode—especially as quickly and spectacularly as it did. She definitely did not expect to fall in love with an older, wealthy American man and become his fourth wife and mother to his youngest children.
Joan and her children grow older, and one day she makes a drastic change: she opens the Satisfaction Café, a place where customers can find connection through conversation. With humor and grace, Joan creates a space for meaningful relationships and constructs a lasting legacy.
Vivid, comic, and profoundly moving, The Satisfaction Café is a novel about found family, the joy and loneliness that come with age, and how we can seek satisfaction at any stage of life. This is a novel of tremendous pleasures: sentences that teem with rich observations, wonderful plotting, and, in Joan, a protagonist for the ages.
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post
Named a Best Book of the Summer by People, Oprah Daily, and Today
A LibraryReads Top 10 Pick
How do we live so that we are satisfied? How can people connect during moments of loneliness? This is the story of Joan Liang, a woman who moves across the world to America, and in trying to answer these questions builds a wildly original life.
Joan’s life is a series of unexpected events: she never thought she would live in California, nor did she expect her first marriage to implode—especially as quickly and spectacularly as it did. She definitely did not expect to fall in love with an older, wealthy American man and become his fourth wife and mother to his youngest children.
Joan and her children grow older, and one day she makes a drastic change: she opens the Satisfaction Café, a place where customers can find connection through conversation. With humor and grace, Joan creates a space for meaningful relationships and constructs a lasting legacy.
Vivid, comic, and profoundly moving, The Satisfaction Café is a novel about found family, the joy and loneliness that come with age, and how we can seek satisfaction at any stage of life. This is a novel of tremendous pleasures: sentences that teem with rich observations, wonderful plotting, and, in Joan, a protagonist for the ages.
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Community Reviews
Thank you to the publisher (Simon & Schuster) and the author for the opportunity to read this advanced reader copy!
I am a sucker for a good family drama, so I was excited to dive in here. I loved the writing here - so bold and descriptive without being boring.
Joan was a very real character in my mind. I liked her, Lee and Jamie’s contradictions as that made them more real. I wanted them to be a closer family the whole time, but I also know that culture was a huge theme here and really shone in Joan’s parenting and how her children made decisions.
I will probably always wonder if Lee and Jamie turned out okay, and if they are happy. I think that's a sign that the characters were well developed. They certainly made a mark.
I am a sucker for a good family drama, so I was excited to dive in here. I loved the writing here - so bold and descriptive without being boring.
Joan was a very real character in my mind. I liked her, Lee and Jamie’s contradictions as that made them more real. I wanted them to be a closer family the whole time, but I also know that culture was a huge theme here and really shone in Joan’s parenting and how her children made decisions.
I will probably always wonder if Lee and Jamie turned out okay, and if they are happy. I think that's a sign that the characters were well developed. They certainly made a mark.
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