From the bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee and Girl in
Translation, an inspiring novel about a young woman torn between her
family duties in Chinatown and her escape into a more Western world.
Twenty-two-year-old Charlie Wong grew up in New York's Chinatown, the
older daughter of a Beijing ballerina and a noodle maker. Though an ABC
(American-born Chinese), Charlie's entire life has been limited to this
small area. Now grown, she lives in the same tiny apartment with her
widower father and her eleven-year-old sister, and works--miserably--as
a dishwasher.
But when she lands a job as a receptionist at a ballroom dance studio,
Charlie gains access to a world she hardly knew existed, and everything
she once took to be certain turns upside down. Gradually, at the dance
studio, awkward Charlie's natural talents begin to emerge. With them,
her perspective, expectations, and sense of self are
transformed--something she must take great pains to hide from her father
and his suspicion of all things Western. As Charlie blossoms, though,
her sister becomes chronically ill. As Pa insists on treating his ailing
child exclusively with Eastern practices to no avail, Charlie is forced
to try to reconcile her two selves and her two worlds--Eastern and
Western, old world and new--to rescue her little sister without
sacrificing her newfound confidence and identity.
