Girl in Reverse
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Being adopted isn’t easy—especially when you’re seen as a national enemy. A teen seeks the roots of her identity in this stirring novel from the acclaimed author of Crossing the Tracks.
When Lily was three, her mother put her up for adoption, then disappeared without a trace. Or so Lily was told. Lily grew up in her new family and tried to forget her past. But with the Korean War raging and the fear of “Commies” everywhere, Lily’s Asian heritage makes her a target. She is sick of the racism she faces, a fact her adoptive parents won’t take seriously. For Lily, war is everywhere—the dinner table, the halls at school, and especially within her own skin.
Then her brainy little brother, Ralph, finds a box containing a baffling jumble of broken antiques—clues to her past left by her “Gone Mom.” Lily and Ralph attempt to match these fragments with rare Chinese artifacts at the art museum, where she encounters the artistic genius Elliot James. Elliot attracts and infuriates Lily—especially when he calls their first kiss “undimensional.” With the help of Ralph and Elliot, will Lily summon the courage to confront her own remarkable creation story?
A poignantly beautiful novel, Girl in Reverse celebrates “a remarkable journey of self-discovery, inner resilience, and the fragile, surprising, and exquisite complexity of family” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ever since age four when Lily joined the Firestone household, where "hard topics are... wrapped in sandpaper and swallowed," she has wondered why her parents adopted her. When the advent of the Korean War exacerbates the barrage of ethnic slurs 17-year-old Lily, her school's only Asian student, endures ("Now prejudice is free to eat in the lunchroom, ride the bus, join fraternities, sneeze, cough, speak up"), she is increasingly less able to "make a joke of it," as her father advises. Lily's determination to resist her tormenters sparks a search for her pre-adoption origins and core identity. Great works of art, like Rodin's The Thinker and Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror, reverberate throughout the story, while support comes from unexpected corners: art student Elliot, whose knack for caricature provides a potent weapon; Mr. Howard, the African-American school janitor; Mr. and Mrs. Chow, whose "foresight and guts" have brought them success; and, most movingly, Lily's intrepid younger brother Ralph. Stuber (Crossing the Tracks) creates a remarkable journey of self-discovery, inner resilience, and the fragile, surprising, and exquisite complexity of family. Ages 12 up.
