Tiger Babies Strike Back: How I Was Raised by a Tiger Mom but Could Not Be Turned to the Dark Side

The message behind novelist Keltner’s first nonfiction book is clear: she wasn’t given enough love as a child and she’s determined not to repeat that same mistake with her daughter, Lucy. As a Chinese-American raised by a “Tiger Mother,” she has ample material to demonstrate her chilly upbringing, and offers plenty of wrenching anecdotes about, and pointed barbs towards, her mother. However, she answers the uproar over Amy Chua’s 2011 Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother with more of a whine, repeatedly hashing out her mommy issues with dramatic cries of anger mixed with half-hearted attempts at maternal sympathy now that she’s a mother herself. There is a tendency towards clichéd, cutesy language, and misplaced humor that undermines the entire project; Keltner frequently resorts to short zingers or pop-culture references immediately following a raw emotional description. For example, after recounting her mother’s response to being confronted about spanking her children, Keltner (The Dim Sum of All Things) employs an unfortunate use of one-liners like “Um, yeah,” “What now, genius?,” and “So sue me.” Keltner’s constant plea for an emotional awakening from her fellow tiger babies is perhaps too well-realized; ironically, in this well-intentioned but scattered work, the heart of the issue is blotted out by over-emotionalism. Agent: Agnes Birnbaum. (Apr.)