This is the first book by the author of
Roots and Wings, which I liked a lot.
As with her latter book, this is the story of a Cambodian-American girl and her relationship with her parent. Only this time, it's her father. Amy grew up in St. Petersburg, Floria, among a fairly substantial Cambodian community, but when her mother leaves Amy and her father, the two of them move to San Diego to make a new start.
This book wasn't quite as polished as
Roots and Wings; the story feels less focused and more like an accumulation of many individual events. At times, I got a little tired of reading about Amy's dad going through another cycle of feeling bad then feeling good. Even though I know it works like that in life, it makes for repetitive reading. The characterization of Amy's friend Sopiep also felt a little haphazard as she moved from being the girl teased at school to the pretty girl with a crush and then back to Amy's best friend. I think I would have believed it more had I had more of a sense of Sopiep's personality, but I didn't.
Still, like
Roots and Wings, this is a quiet, sad book, although it ultimately has hope in the end. On the other hand, it had many more descriptions of the San Diego Cambodian-American community, which I enjoyed. Amy and her father belong to the community, as opposed to the protagonist of
Roots and Wings, and although the fairly long timeline (a year or over) felt slow at times, I appreciated being able to see San Diego through Amy's eyes throughout the entire year, not just a few weeks.
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