“I didn’t know how to take care of someone,” declares Willa Chen at the beginning of Win Me Something. Kyle Lucia Wu’s debut novel asks: What are the costs of caring? What are the politics — racial, gendered, class-related — of caring for and being a part of a family? What does belonging mean to a young, mixed-race woman floundering in New York City?

Willa, a biracial Chinese-American, is thrown into the world of white elitism when she stumbles into a job as a full-time nanny. Her employers are Nathalie and Gabe Adrien, a rich white couple living in Tribeca who want only the best for their daughter, Bijou. Willa’s experience with the Adriens is interspersed with flashbacks of her lonely childhood. While readers witness how her past influences Willa — especially her craving for a “normal” family — the novel remains firmly rooted in the everyday reality of her job.

In many ways a classic coming-of-age narrative, Win Me Something follows Willa’s struggle to find her own identity and purpose as a twenty-something in New York. “I wished someone would tell me what to see,” Willa thinks while visiting an art gallery with Bijou, who often seems more culturally competent than her nanny, something of which Willa is keenly aware. Throughout, we get the sense that Willa is trying to decide how to interpret the world around her. Both Nathalie Adrien, with her polished life, and nine-year-old Bijou seem to have a stronger sense of how to live — and that is partly what attracts Willa to the Adriens.

Wu paints a vivid and three-dimensional portrait of white Manhattan elitism. While she doesn’t shy away from showing the ways in which the Adriens and those in their social circle condescend to and exploit Willa, Wu also depicts moments of genuine connection between Willa and the Adriens, particularly Bijou. Rather than caricaturing the white employers as overtly racist, Wu emphasizes how the Adriens’ prejudices are (seemingly) “neatly tucked away” yet manifest themselves in more insidious, subtle ways. Wu is adept at showing how these racist microaggressions intersect with class boundaries; Willa is often put in situations where she can’t really say no to propositions or call out racism, even if she’s given the illusion of agency. Willa herself wants the Adriens’ lifestyle. She’s drawn not only to their nuclear family structure, but also to the glamour of their lives. The book is rooted in sensory descriptions of material goods: bouquets of special hydrangeas, empty wine glasses, elaborately-buttoned gowns, soft sheets. As we watch Willa buy boutique store outfits and go to fancy bars, we realize that these various activities are an essential part of belonging to this world. At the same time, Willa’s efforts to fit in often just highlight her state of non-belonging.

Wu’s descriptions of Willa’s life as a nanny capture her loneliness and sharp longing. Watching Nathalie put Bijou to bed, Willa reflects on how “[i]t was more luck than I could bear, and here I was, being paid to stand by and watch.” Watching is a consistent theme throughout, highlighting Willa’s acute observation skills and her status as a perpetual outsider. Willa is also constantly concerned about how she herself is perceived, keenly aware of how her job makes “very watched, which wasn’t the same as being seen.” But she feels like an outsider elsewhere, too, not just on the job; through her interactions with Bijou’s Mandarin teacher and her Chinese father, we see how Willa, as a mixed-race Chinese-American, is caught in a similarly in-between state.

Alongside this exploration of being between identities, photography — specifically, how it plays with the gap between image and reality — is another through-line in Win Me Something. Looking at one photo, Willa sees herself as happy, “like someone I might have wanted to be when I was younger,” even though the photo was taken at a party where she knew no one. In other, more metaphorical “snapshots,” Willa is able to process and remember events. Shades of desire are etched into everyday moments, as when Bijou “woke up in the lemon glow of Nathalie’s attention.” Being seen is, of course, also a way of being recognized and cared for. The title of Win Me Something poses a question; What would “winning” look like for Willa? While the book doesn’t directly answer the question, it hints heavily at an answer. Ultimately Willa is trying to be seen, to “get [herself] loved.”

While Wu shades Willa’s life as a nanny with nuance and ambiguity, the family flashbacks chart a less convincing and perhaps overly linear progression. Because Willa’s dad has remarried and has two new kids, Willa now seeks a family of her own; because Willa’s mother was often unstable and absentminded, Willa now craves a connection with Nathalie, who is such a capable mother to Bijou. I couldn’t help but wish that these connections were less obvious, given how adeptly Wu explores the gray zones of belonging and exclusion elsewhere.

Win Me Something succeeds admirably at depicting Willa’s journey as she grapples with multiple mixed identities. The ending was especially lovely in its understatedness; Wu draws the novel to a conclusion that feels inevitable — tender, melancholic, self-reflexive, and quietly poignant. In other words, it feels like growing up.

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