Lovely coming of age story of a young girl who comes to America with her mom through her aunt’s help. We see the struggle of young Kim and her to learn English and barely survive (with basically no help from family) and Kim’s unstoppable drive to take care of her mother and make a better life for them. It seems the only one who understands her is Matt, a boy just a few years older than her...
Kwok paints so elegantly the dissonance between the people she socializes with at her private school and the “secret” life that she lives in the fabric factory. She keeps you interested in all the characters (even the ones you don’t like, you still wonder about them!) but doesn’t give everything away, which I really enjoyed. Definitely worth the read.