There have always been secrets in Danny Cheng’s family. When he finds a taped-up box in his father’s closet, it is more than old photos and letters; there is a file on a powerful Silicon Valley family. A high school senior who has early acceptance to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Danny becomes obsessed with figuring out the past. His parents immigrated to the states from China to Texas and then moved in the middle of the night without warning to California. And changed their last name. He experiences a new emptiness for the sister he never knew about who died young. How do all these clues connect?
Danny’s friends who attends a mostly Asian-America high school in Cupertino, are all very real and memorable. Harry Wong is the perfect combination of nice, handsome, and smart and the two have a deep and meaningful friendship. Harry’s girlfriend Regina Chan has known Danny forever. The book made me long for a sequel just to find out what the future will be for these young people.
As the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that shook this friend group approaches, Regina publishes the school newspaper as a memorial and lands them all in trouble. Danny’s family begins to unravel as an accident brings them into the public eye.
This story grabs you and just won’t let go as the pieces fall into place yet the unexpected still happens. The ending literally made me gasp out loud. Themes of love, loyalty, family, immigration and friendship are beautifully woven in this moving book.
“Because if you're tangled up in someone else, if your futures are tied that way, if that's real and if you know when it happens - then it means you know who you belong to, and you know whose fates are tied to yours, whether you like it or planned it or not, whether they still exist in the same world with you or they don't, and I think that's where everything begins and ends. I think that's everything.”
Tessa's Picks, 8th grade, Character driven, Contemporary Fiction, Family life, Issues Fiction, Friendship, People of color, Romance, LGBTQ
Danny’s friends who attends a mostly Asian-America high school in Cupertino, are all very real and memorable. Harry Wong is the perfect combination of nice, handsome, and smart and the two have a deep and meaningful friendship. Harry’s girlfriend Regina Chan has known Danny forever. The book made me long for a sequel just to find out what the future will be for these young people.
As the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that shook this friend group approaches, Regina publishes the school newspaper as a memorial and lands them all in trouble. Danny’s family begins to unravel as an accident brings them into the public eye.
This story grabs you and just won’t let go as the pieces fall into place yet the unexpected still happens. The ending literally made me gasp out loud. Themes of love, loyalty, family, immigration and friendship are beautifully woven in this moving book.
“Because if you're tangled up in someone else, if your futures are tied that way, if that's real and if you know when it happens - then it means you know who you belong to, and you know whose fates are tied to yours, whether you like it or planned it or not, whether they still exist in the same world with you or they don't, and I think that's where everything begins and ends. I think that's everything.”
Tessa's Picks, 8th grade, Character driven, Contemporary Fiction, Family life, Issues Fiction, Friendship, People of color, Romance, LGBTQ
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