A moving, witty, often hilarious novel following a woman who becomes an internet sensation in the most unexpected way, catapulting into a world of money and fame just as she’s beginning to finally reckon with her complicated past, from the author of The Wangs vs. the World

Lola Treasure Gold can’t figure out her life. She’s broke, she’s unemployed, she’s back in her childhood home, a crumbling cottage in the Hollywood Hills. Worse, unspeakably worse, one of her closest friends has just died. So nobody is more surprised than Lola when a jackpot falls in her lap: she stars in an accidental Very Viral Video, opening a path for her to become an even more accidental self-help guru.

With the encouragement of her other best friend, Celi—still alive, thank god—Lola embraces the public interest in her perceived message. But is she a scammer or a sage? Just as she’s telling others to be their own guiding lights, she can’t seem to find hers: she’s grieving, and she’s accused of using the notoriety of her friend’s death to fuel her rise. And she’s only now raising questions about the fate of her mother, who came to America pregnant, fleeing China’s one-child policy, got deported when Lola was eight, and now has totally disappeared.

Driven by an exuberant, searching spirit, Jade Chang’s kaleidoscopic new novel is a deep examination of the ways we commodify belief, the power and precarity of fame, and the delicious terror of being truly seen. What a Time to Be Alive asks if we can look honestly at the world and still love it: the answer is a brilliant, resounding yes.