Model Minority Gone Rogue

How an unfulfilled daughter of a tiger mother went way off script

We all grow up with rules. Do this, be this, don't be that. Qin Qin was all about the rules: do your homework, be good, don't rock the boat. She was the model daughter, model student and model minority.

But doing everything right? It made her lost and miserable. So she decided to take a spectacular risk and change everything.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR AND 2025 ACT BOOK OF THE YEAR

We all grow up with rules. Do this, be this, don't be that. Qin Qin was all about the rules: do your homework, be good, don't rock the boat. She was the model daughter, model student and model minority.

But doing everything right? It made her lost and miserable. So she decided to take a spectacular risk and change everything.

At 23, Qin Qin was an unhappy overachiever working for a prestigious law firm. So she quit. She didn't know what else was out there, but she wanted to find out. She changed paths, changed countries, changed her entire view of what the world could be, and who she could be - with some primal screaming and tree-hugging along the way.

In the process, she discovered the person she truly was, not who she thought she should be.

Model Minority Gone Rogue is a funny, sad, exhilarating and thought-provoking true story about what happens when you want to live life on your own terms, even when those terms go against everything you've ever known. It's a story of what happens when you choose love over fear and honour your authentic self: life can be bigger and brighter than anything you had ever imagined.

'Qin Qin is a living example of the adage: screw things up, thoughtfully. With every chapter of her story, she illuminates an alternative model to the corrosive stories we've taken on and been told about what we should be, rather than who we could be. Read this and feel yourself untangle and unknot.' BENJAMIN LAW, author, journalist and broadcaster

'Model Minority Gone Rogue is about finding yourself against the expectations your parents, society and gender set out for you and courageously venturing into uncharted terrain . It is illuminating, generous and full of gutsy hard-won wisdom.' ALICE PUNG, bestselling author of Unpolished Gem

'I wish this book had existed when I was growing up. It will shock you, move you and educate you. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about the experience of being an Australian of Chinese heritage.' SUE-LIN WONG, award-winning The Economist correspondent and The Prince podcast host

'Bold and frequently surprising, Qin Qin brings the same challenge to her readers as she has for her hard-won identity: grow, love and question everything! Model Minority Gone Rogue is a book for anyone who has ever screamed on the inside, with powerful and unyielding observations on sex, race, the body and feminism.' CADANCE BELL, author and TV producer, writer and director

'Sassy, sad, funny, unvarnished.' CANBERRA TIMES

'[A]s much a manifesto as it is a memoir: permission to rip up the rule book and live a life of meaning.' BEEJAY SILCOX

'[The book] canvasses how the author's life went awry. It's an insightful - often hilarious - unpacking of racial stereotypes and of making your own way.' ARTSHUB

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