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A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel
by Emma Nanami Strenner
A missing child, two girls in search of their true identities--a stunning novel of mothers, daughters and best friends.
In June 1998, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport.
Seventeen years later, two best friends in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, discuss their summer plans before college. Kit, with the support of her white adoptive parents, will travel to Tokyo to explore her Japanese roots. This dizzying adventure offers her a taste of first love and a new understanding of what it means to belong.
Sabrina had hoped to take a similar trip to China, but money is tight. Her disappointment subsides, however, when she meets a bold, uncompromising new mentor who prompts Sabrina to ask questions she's avoided all her life. Meanwhile, Mimi purchases a plane ticket to Philadelphia. She finally has a lead in her search for her daughter.
When Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina come face to face, they will confront the people they truly are, in this tremendously moving novel that is propelled to its astonishing climax in a way you will never forget.
"[My Other Heart] captures the intense love between mothers and daughters and highlights the resilience of young women forging their own identities in a world full of expectations. A beautifully written and thought-provoking novel that is a must-read for those interested in contemporary fiction about cultural exploration and personal growth." —Library Journal
" Readers will be captivated by Strenner's elegant prose and the tender resilience of her characters... an unforgettable coming-of-age story." —Booklist
"My Other Heart is a wise, well observed, and transporting debut that explores what it means to belong. At once an immersive coming of age novel and an unflinching study of race, class, and manners, it confronts loneliness, cowardice, the quest for self-acceptance, and the effort required to truly see one another—even the people we think we're closest to—head-on. Sabrina Chen is an unforgettable heroine. I was on her side from start to finish." —Emma Knight, New York Times bestselling author of The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus
"I'm grateful to Emma Nanami Strenner for this story of two young Asian-American women, who grapple with big questions of culture and social class, while also navigating the everyday complexities of friendship, love, and daughterhood. My Other Heart offers no pat or easy answers, thank goodness. Instead, Sabrina and Kit learn that identity isn't always simple and that only they can answer the question of who they are and to what world—or worlds—they want to belong." —Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling author of Watch Us Shine
This information about My Other Heart was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Emma Nanami Strenner is British Japanese and has a degree in Modern Chinese Studies from the University of Leeds. She has worked as a journalist for almost twenty years and as a section editor for Vogue International, Elle, and Stylist. She spent most of her life living abroad in Japan, Vietnam, Australia, China, Singapore, and the United States. This is her debut novel.
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