by Jean Kwok
First published 2020
Amy Lee has always looked up to her older sister Sylvie, the brilliant and successful daughter who seemed perfect in every way. When Sylvie travels to the Netherlands to visit their dying grandmother and then disappears without a trace, Amy must step out of her sheltered life to find her. Sylvie had spent her childhood in the Netherlands with their uncle's family because their Chinese-American parents were too poor as illiterate immigrants to support both daughters. She only returned to New York when she was nine, but Amy was too young then to remember those early years. Now Amy flies to the last place Sylvie was seen, expecting simple explanations. Instead she uncovers a web of family secrets that Sylvie had hidden. The sister Amy thought she knew completely had been living with painful truths about their family's past that Amy never imagined existed.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Netherlands, New York
Period: 21st-century
379 pages · Paperback · Boekerij