Girl in Translation

Starred review from July 26, 2010
This audiobook is the perfect match of narrator and material. Grayce Wey's performance as immigrant Kimberly Chang feels absolutely authentic. As the adult Kimberly looking back at her life, Wey has just a touch of a Chinese accent (appropriate for a character who's lived in America for two decades), and her tone conveys bittersweet regret even while knowing she made the right choice. But when speaking as the younger, newly arrived Kimberly, Wey's Chinese accent is much heavier, and we can hear Kimberly's confusion, anxiety, and struggle to adjust to this new culture. Wey perfectly evokes Kimberly's growing assertiveness and determination, her teenage longing, joy, and pain when falling in love for the first time, and her conflicted feelings when making difficult decisions about her path in life. A moving and memorable listen. A Riverhead hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 15).

March 15, 2010
A resolute yet naïve Chinese girl confronts poverty and culture shock with equal zeal when she and her mother immigrate to Brooklyn in Kwok's affecting coming-of-age debut. Ah-Kim Chang, or Kimberly as she is known in the U.S., had been a promising student in Hong Kong when her father died. Now she and her mother are indebted to Kimberly's Aunt Paula, who funded their trip from Hong Kong, so they dutifully work for her in a Chinatown clothing factory where they earn barely enough to keep them alive. Despite this, and living in a condemned apartment that is without heat and full of roaches, Kimberly excels at school, perfects her English, and is eventually admitted to an elite, private high school. An obvious outsider, without money for new clothes or undergarments, she deals with added social pressures, only to be comforted by an understanding best friend, Annette, who lends her makeup and hands out American advice. A love interest at the factory leads to a surprising plot line, but it is the portrayal of Kimberly's relationship with her mother that makes this more than just another immigrant story.

Jean Kwok's debut tells the story of 7-year-old Kim Chang and her mother, who are leaving successful lives in Hong Kong after Kim's father has died to come to Brooklyn. Grayce Wey gives Kim a determined voice as she finds herself caught between two worlds: that of abused, disenfranchised immigrants and that of America's mostly oblivious citizens, who are happy to remain clueless about the struggles that many people face, here and in the rest of the world. Listeners will admire Kim's resolution to use education to escape indebtedness to Aunt Paula, who financed her emigration; her life in a roach-infested tenement; and what seems like slave labor in a Chinatown sweatshop. The listener comes away with new appreciation for immigrants who fight impossible odds to enrich this melting pot we call the U.S.A. N.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine