Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok is a story of a poor Hongkonese immigrant girl trying to survive in America. It is basically a Rags to Riches narrative told in Young Adult genre. There is a number of familiar tropes here: an outsider girl with a superpower, an unknown and hostile land that she tries to navigate, a dead parent, useless adults, and a love triangle are those that I could spot. No fairies, thankfully. The presence of tropes doesn’t mean the story is bad. I liked the descriptions of immigrant life, toil at a factory (the author reportedly drew from her own childhood experience), life in Chinatown. I appreciated the author’s use of language, threads of Mandarin, and the protagonist’s trouble with English, as well as changes in writing that corresponded to changes in the character’s language ability. Although the romance part felt strained to me, I loved the questioning of the meaning of Riches in the end. I was very glad at the resolution and the idea that even when you have superpowers, it doesn’t mean you will have it all.
3.5/5⭐️ and recommended because of the amazing (and I think in parts autobiographical) story. I would love to read the author’s second book. ☺️