Elaine's Reviews > Girl in Translation

I should probably bring this book down to a 3 for how terrible the end is. And clearly the characterizations of everyone except our narrator are fairly unsubtle. But I was completely engrossed in the details of this story of growing up dreadfully poor in Brooklyn a generation ago, a Tree Grows in Brooklyn for the late 20th Century. Kwok's tale really grabs you, and if you have a hard time crediting some of the details, the deeper unease is with the undeniable fact that the world she portrays - piecework for far less than minimum wage, children laboring in factories, squatting in unheated condemned buildings - is not a sepia-toned memory of my great-grandparents' (or A Tree Grows in BK's) New York, but a contemporary reality.

But, having a great story to tell does not excuse cheap ripped-from-Harlequin double-twist endings. Without spoilers, there's nothing about the last 10% of the book that I found credible, or true to the story that Kwok has told up to that point. I've convinced myself - down to a 3!