I think this is a good intro, but honestly I don't think it goes deep enough. It doesn't talk about the moment where one decides whether or not to assimilate, or even if that is indeed an option. It doesn't talk about acculturation and discovering exactly how much one has changed when interacting with someone from "back home." It doesn't talk about how people can fall into the ex-pat limbo of belonging to neither society and how there is an ex-pat society all on its own and that that society too has shades of experience. I did really like this: but I do also wish she wrote about those ex-pats that fall through the cracks (there are surprising numbers of them), who don't land softly or at all. That said, it's a hard topic to write about as people who have never done it will have a hard time really understanding it. Yeah, most people have heard about culture shock, but most don't know that the deeper kind of culture shock really sets in at about 4-5 years in country. I do hope that it becomes a more common experience though.There is a certain amount of comfort and confidence that you gain with yourself when you go to this new place and start all over again, and a knowledge that — come what may in the rest of your life — you were capable of taking that leap and landing softly at least once.
I guess she can only write from her own perspective, but you are right. I have many friends that experienced huge difficulties integrating themselves into the new society and other ones that had no problems at all. This seems to depend on the person, on the circumstances and on the people one meets. I take it, you have lived/live in a foreign country as well?