XiXi Tian Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

XiXi Tian is a Chinese-American author.

She was born in China and was just a year old when she immigrated with her family to the United States. She spent her time growing up in the central area of Illinois. She attended the University of Illinois and graduated from the Urbana-Champaign chapter of the university with a history degree. She then attended and graduated from Harvard Law School.

XiXi is a lawyer, a reader, a writer, and a Midwesterner wherever she goes. She enjoys reading as well as writing about anything that has to do with the Asian-American experience as well as any story with complicated family dynamics or heartbreak.

Her debut novel is titled This Place Is Still Beautiful. It is a story about two sisters, both Chinese-American, who discover that they are at odds when it comes to how they think that they should respond to an attack on their home that seems to have been a racist act, while one of them hides a secret.

She is writing a second novel that is going to have a Chinese-American protagonist who is trying to get through a college road trip that she goes on with her rival from childhood. She is also trying to discover how to pick up the pieces from a tragedy that has gone on that has kept her family from moving on. The book is to be titled All The Way Around The Sun.

This Place Is Still Beautiful is the debut novel from XiXi Tian. This book has been highly received with many reviews giving it five stars!

If you are a fan of works by Jandy Nelson, Emily X.R. Pan, or Tahereh Mafi, or enjoy books that have Asian-American characters, themes, and speak to the Asian-American experience, check this story out.

This is the story of two sisters and the summer that they go through that involves a racist incident and may very well end up changing their lives.

Main characters Annalie and Margaret are sisters. They’ve gone through upbringings that have been close to identical, but despite that, they are able to agree on just one thing. The sisters acknowledge that they don’t have anything in common.

Margaret is 19 years old and she is ambitious, driven, and dedicated to staying informed about all social justice issues. She has never felt at home in their small town, which she finds oppressive, and all her life could not wait to leave it all behind and go off to New York.

Then there’s Annalie, who is 17 years old and known for her sweet disposition. She is popular and she really enjoys living in their town. It is a good fit for her and for some time she feels safe there and is in a comfortable stream there.

That all changes when she comes home one day and discovers something horrible. The garage door of their home has a racial slur that has been painted onto it. Margaret is informed about it and is completely outraged. She makes arrangements to fly home and thinks that she’s going to see her family similarly affected and completely up in arms about the situation.

She is instead surprised to discover that they have a completely different reaction. Instead of being incensed about the graffiti and its content, it appears that they simply want to put it behind them. All of them would rather forget about the incident for their own reasons. Her little sister just wants her summer to be normal, and their mother doesn’t want to pursue it and stir things up further. Annalie also seems to think that her sister wants to ruin that experience and get in the middle of what could be a great summer.

Margaret and Annalie are now temporarily back in the same quarters and it’s like they are instantly under each other’s skin already. The tension between them only seems to grow, and the dynamic between them is only getting worse.

Not even being distracted by first love for the younger sister or a lost love for the older sister may have the ability to bring them together. But then a secret that comes up could be the catalyst for tearing them apart for good. What will happen? Read This Place Is Still Beautiful by XiXi Tian to find out!