Selected Praise for They Called Us Exceptional

“[Gupta’s] startling candor and willingness to confront painful truths make this sing. Readers who’ve broken free from toxic family dynamics—or are hoping to do so—will want to check it out.”—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

“Vulnerable and courageous…Gupta’s resilience and her hope to be fully seen are an inspiration in both personal and political terms.” —The Washington Post

“I read it in one sitting. Wow. It aims right at the tender spot where racism, sexism, and family dynamics collide, and somehow manages to be both searingly honest and deeply compassionate.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

“They Called Us Exceptional is a marvel: a searingly honest memoir that manages to be at once a scalding indictment, and a heartfelt love letter. In its descriptions of the struggle to live authentically across two cultures, Gupta’s book evokes W.E.B. Du Bois and Maxine Hong Kingston; in its exploration of how family psychopathology and cultural history entwine themselves across generations, it calls to mind Gabriel García Márquez and Salman Rushdie. And in telling the story of her family’s wrenching private travails behind the public successes, Gupta has proven herself exceptional in at least two regards—as a woman of formidable resilience and as a writer of outsized talent.” —Scott Stossel, national editor of the Atlantic and author of My Age of Anxiety

“It’s not very often that the word “necessary” in a book review feels, well, necessary. And yet, more than perhaps any other book to come across my desk this year, I want to shout from the mountaintops and the depths of the sea — upward, downward, and everywhere in between — that you must read this book. Journalist Prachi Gupta has penned one of the most gripping blends of memoir and reporting, writing a book whose page-turning is compelled as much by masterful macro-level storytelling as by memoir. By turns angry and achingly vulnerable, They Called Us Exceptional indicts not only the assimilation myths of the United States, but the world of mental healthcare.” —Jina Moore Ngarambe, editor-in-chief of Guernica

“What happens when a person discovers that the American Dream is a virus? Gupta’s stunning and devastating debut contorts genre—existing as a disquisition on Asian American assimilation into the West, a bird’s-eye view of how patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy congealed to destroy a family, and a coming-of-age tale about a woman who had to fight to make space for her voice.” —Damon Young, Washington Post columnist and author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker

“Holding up to the light received ideas of success, and examining with boundless love the secrets and sorrows of one family, Prachi Gupta shows us the life-altering power of telling one's truth.” —Megha Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning