by Kirstin Chen
First published 2018
San San is only nine when she and her twelve-year-old brother Ah Liam catch their grandmother destroying a portrait of Chairman Mao with a hammer. Ah Liam believes he must prove his loyalty to the Party by reporting what he witnessed. His decision to turn in his own grandmother triggers consequences that tear their family apart. The children and their mother must escape Drum Wave Islet, their island home that lies just hundreds of meters from mainland China's shore. When their mother seeks visas for safe passage to Hong Kong, the government presents her with an impossible choice. Officials will grant the documents only if she abandons one child behind as guarantee that the family intends to return. San San faces the possibility of separation from everything she knows, caught between a brother's misguided sense of duty and a mother's desperate attempt to save them all.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, political-thriller, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, family-drama, forced-proximity
Setting: China, Drum Wave Islet, Hong Kong
Period: 20th-century
289 pages · Hardcover · Little A
Content warnings: child-death