Anna Qu's debut book is a poignant and succinctly written memoir in which she reflects on growing up as a Chinese immigrant in America, as a neglected stepchild in a new family unit that made no room to include her, as a young girl navigating adolescence with no support while bound by her mother's oppressive parenting and expectations of free labor. After her father passes away, her mother goes to the US in search of a better life, leaving her with grandparents in Wenzhou for years. At age 7 she was finally reunited with her mother, who by now was more like a stranger, and with a stepfather and two young half-siblings whose carefree, indulged lives would always exist in stark contrast to her own reality of abandonment and abuse.

Many parts of this book were hard to read — not just because the injustice and emotional neglect she endured for years is heartbreaking, but also because I could not logically comprehend how her mother could treat her child the way she did. In reading about her memories of being excluded from family events, being forced as a child to finish evening shifts at the family's garment factory and take the train home alone while her parents drove home and had dinner with their other children hours earlier, being yelled at and slapped for staying up too late to do her homework because it was the only "leisure" time available to her, I often found myself judging the parent who would do this to her own daughter.

But rather than lay blame on the family that caused her so much misery, Qu's narrative is full of deep and breathtaking empathy. She writes eloquently about her attempts as an adult to make sense of the trauma her mother suffered growing up during the Cultural Revolution that made her the person she was, of her mother's struggles to survive as a poor working woman, and of the decision of her child services caseworker to declare there was no evidence of abuse and no need to remove her from her home. In writing about her experiences with incredible candor and vulnerability, Qu peels back the layers on many difficult and complex issues of abuse, immigration, and belonging.

This was such a powerful and insightful read for me, and I cannot recommend it enough. Many thanks to the publisher, Catapult, for sending me this free ARC. Make sure to check this book out when it's released on August 3, 2021!