A nuanced, skillfully executed, and highly entertaining exploration of cultural belonging.
A Korean American teenager, believing she’s not “Korean enough,” tries reinventing herself.
Jane Choi, a 17-year-old Korean American girl in Omaha, Nebraska, feels embarrassed about her ignorance of Korean culture. Even Matty Ricci and Bridge Johanssen, her best friends, who are cued white, obsessively watch K-dramas and are K-everything experts. Jane’s second-generation parents haven’t transmitted the bits of cultural knowledge they have, and she’s worried that Franklin, her soon-to-be-born baby brother, will be clueless, too. Feeling inadequate, Jane devises Project K-Jane as a solution: She starts teaching herself all about Korean culture, recording her progress on a private channel on the StoryThyme app. She cooks Korean dishes, learns about holidays, studies Korean language, and watches K-dramas, imagining someday guiding her brother. She also hopes her vlog will entertain her cousins, fellow “white on the inside” bananas, who are her only audience. If she impresses her crush, culturally savvy Taiwanese American Edward Liu, even better. But Jane’s retreat into her obsession alienates her friends and breaks the trust her parents have in her. And when she accidentally goes viral, the ensuing drama shows her what belonging really means. This refreshing portrayal of a young woman navigating culture and identity highlights the diversity of Korean diaspora experiences. Jane’s angst, perceptive voice, and self-awareness add dimension to her transformation. Kang weaves thought-provoking musings on authenticity and the gatekeeping of cultural identity throughout.
A nuanced, skillfully executed, and highly entertaining exploration of cultural belonging. (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780063354623
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
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