Searching for Sylvie Lee

Amy Lee's Chinese immigrant family was too poor to keep her older sister, Sylvie, who was raised for a time by a distant relative. Now, grown-up Sylvie has disappeared, and when Amy starts retracing her movements, she finds not her sister but her sister's well-kept secrets. From the New York Times best-selling author Kwok, winner of ALA's Alex Award and the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award.

March 1, 2019
A Chinese family spanning the U.S. and the Netherlands grapples with the disappearance of one of their own.Twenty-six-year-old Amy Lee is living in her parents' cramped Queens apartment when she gets a frantic call from Lukas Tan, the Dutch second cousin she's never met. Her successful older sister, Sylvie, who had flown to the Netherlands to see their ailing grandmother, is missing. Amy's questions only mount as she looks into Sylvie's disappearance. Why does Sylvie's husband, Jim, look so bedraggled when Amy tracks him down, and why are all his belongings missing from the Brooklyn Heights apartment he and Sylvie share? Why is Sylvie no longer employed by her high-powered consulting firm? And when Amy finally musters up the courage to travel to the Netherlands for the first time, why do her relatives--the Tan family, including Lukas and his parents, Helena and Willem--act so strangely whenever Sylvie is brought up? Amy's search is interlaced with chapters from Sylvie's point of view from a month earlier as she returns to the Netherlands, where she had been sent as a baby by parents who couldn't afford to keep her, to be raised by the Tans. As Amy navigates fraught police visits and her own rising fears, she gradually uncovers the family's deepest secrets, some of them decades old. Though the novel is rife with romantic entanglements and revelations that wouldn't be amiss in a soap opera, its emotional core is the bond between the Lee sisters, one of mutual devotion and a tinge of envy. Their intertwined relationship is mirrored in the novel's structure--their alternating chapters, separated in time and space, echo each other. Both ride the same bike through the Tans' village, both encounter the same dashing cellist. Kwok (Mambo in Chinatown, 2014, etc.), who lives in the Netherlands, is eloquent on the clumsy, overt racism Chinese people face there: "Sometimes I think that because we Dutch believe we are so emancipated, we become blind to the faults in ourselves," one of her characters says. But the book is a meditation not just on racism, but on (not) belonging: "When you were different," Sylvie thinks, "who knew if it was because of a lack of social graces or the language barrier or your skin color?"A frank look at the complexities of family, race and culture.

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April 15, 2019
Kwok’s thoughtful thriller (after Mambo in Chinatown) explores the Chinese immigrant experience in New York and Amsterdam, as the death of a grandmother leads two sisters to discover secrets about their family’s past. Beautiful, high-achieving older sister Sylvie was raised by relatives in the Netherlands until she was nine while her newly emigrated parents tried to make a life for themselves in the U.S. In her 30s, Sylvie returns to say goodbye to her grandmother and becomes romantically involved with both a second cousin to whom she has always been attracted and a mysterious musician. When Sylvie disappears, having told her family in Amsterdam that she is returning to New York, her shy younger sister, Amy, sets off to find out what happened. Amy gets to know the family members she has never met, and begins to formulate theories about what happened to Sylvie. Kwok builds suspense by alternating between the points of view of Sylvie and Amy. The story is at its best when it delineates the struggles of second-generation Chinese immigrants in the two countries, and at its weakest when it falls into swooning romance clichés. Because most readers will solve the mysteries before Amy does, this one will satisfy those interested in the immigrant experience more than those looking for a complex plot to puzzle over.

Starred review from April 15, 2019
Sisters Sylvie and Amy Lee have the same Chinese immigrant parents but different childhoods. Amy was raised in New York, while Sylvie spent her formative years in the Netherlands with their grandmother and cousins. When Grandma falls ill, Sylvie returns to the small Dutch village to care for her. After Grandma dies, the family assumes that Sylvie came back to America, but Amy is shocked to discover that Sylvie is missing. Amy swallows her fears and travels abroad, determined to find her sister. As she unravels the mystery of Sylvie's disappearance, Sylvie tells her own version of the story in flashbacks, and the girls' mother weighs in with her own perspective. Reading Kwok's (Mambo in Chinatown, 2014) third novel is like watching an artist create a pencil drawing; she lays down the initial outline, then builds on it with shading and nuance until everything comes together at the stunning end. Her sharp and surprising language transports readers across the globe on a breathless and emotionally complex journey. Excellent from every angle, this is a can't-miss novel for lovers of poignant and propulsive fiction.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Another sure bet from the internationally best-selling Kwok, whose Girl in Translation put her on the map.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)