I am a huge fan of Gish Jen. I don't know when I first encountered her, but I like her stories about growing up in America. ( )

A quick read interesting but not a book I'd read again. It was okay. ( )

Loved the premise of a young 2nd generation Chinese teen converting to Judaism. I really liked Mona, the main character, and her relationship with her sister. I could practically see her eyes rolling at her mother's conversations and advice.

But partway through, I have lost interest. Maybe it's me, but I am not attached to finishing this book. ( )

Pretty funny with some very sharp writing. Tedious subplot about cook and his black power friends. Final conflict between Mona and her mother seems to come out nowhere, but nice bittersweet resolution. ( )

This book was on the Next Book list of books in their "Let's Talk About it Series" - Neighbors - the World Next Door. This series was done in our library and I can say that this book was not one that I would have picked up to read on my own. However, I enjoyed it. It is about a Chinese American girl whose immigrant parents own a chinese food restaurant and live in upper class Westchester New York. To her parents dismay she grows up utterly un-chinese and worst of all decides to convert to Judaism. The theme here is assimilation and how the children of immigrants become neither their parents culture or the culture in which they live but something else. How these children make peace with who they are is the story. This book did not get great reviews, and there were some problems with the writing that better editing could have cured, but my discussion group liked it and it gave us plenty of food for thought. ( )