This book started off strong, with the defining event of the accident that kills two of the main characters — Tony Kwan and his cousin Mia — occurring within the first couple of pages. From there, the story focuses on the aftermath of the accident and those left behind: Tony's grieving widow Tam, who ends up with legal guardianship of Mia's five-year-old daughter Angela. At the same time, Tam receives the acceptance letter that she and Tony had been waiting for — the letter confirming their adoption of a son from an orphanage in China — which she will now have to decide whether to go through with on her own. As she tries to pick up the pieces of her life, Tam also has to reckon with her husband's and his estranged cousin's pasts, as well as deal with a long-held secret that could upend everything.
I'm actually a little torn with this one, as there were quite a few aspects of it that I enjoyed, but at the same time, I also felt parts of the story fell a little flat in some places. One thing that surprised me is that I didn't feel anything emotionally for any of the characters, which I wasn't expecting given my shared cultural background with these characters (Chinese American) and also a certain familiarity with their struggles from an immigrant story perspective. It's not that the characters weren't likable, because they were, but I guess I was expecting a little more depth to some of the characters than what came across in the story. I also had a little bit of an issue with the way Angela was portrayed in the story, as I didn't feel at any point that she was only five years old — the way she came across based on how she acted and talked in nearly every scene, I felt like I was reading about someone in her teens at least (there were even a few instances where Angela seemed to act more like an "adult" than Tam). In the end, this uneven portrayal of the characters impacted my reading experience more than I was hoping it would.
Having said all that, I still appreciated the story overall and the writing was solid (though the plot was very much predictable and the ending I wasn't too fond of). I'm glad I read this one and at some point, I hope to pick up Lyn Liao Butler's first book, The Tiger Mom's Tale, while waiting to see what she has in store next.
Received ARC from Berkley Books via NetGalley.
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