Whasian

Gr 10 Up—Ava Ling Magee is ready to begin college with a fresh slate. Her Chinese mother is controlling and overbearing, and her white father is almost entirely absent from her life. Culturally, Ava is not sure who she is or where she fits, but college helps her start to gain some insight. She meets new people—some biracial like herself—and connects to a professor who sees in her the possibility for creativity and maybe a career in English instead of medicine like Ava's mother wants. But there are dark secrets in Ava's family history she will not be able to easily walk away from. While there are a few notable scenes in this debut novel, such as Ava discussing growing up biracial with other mixed race teens and her discovering books and documentaries that reflect her experience, it is overall a messy and disjointed novel. Ava's mother is not just controlling but melodramatically, violently abusive and often speaks in unrealistic and inconsistent bursts of broken English. At least once Ava suggests her mother is this violent and controlling because she is Chinese, which is a problematic stereotype that the text never fully refutes. The narrative also occasionally switches to Ava's parents' perspective, which slows the story and confuses readers. The teen's exploration of her family's past through a diary her grandmother kept during the Cultural Revolution in China is another distraction, but it at least hints at a better story than the one found here.