This book bounces between the cute and the cliche. The reader feels there is a real story-teller waiting to get out, but suffocating under the author's clumsy craftsmanship. The immigrant "experience" is not deconstructed but frozen into solid pieces narrative, into obvious encounters with bigots and identity confusion/pursuit. My best advice is that the potential reader should get the book out of library and save the cash for another book that will deserve a re-read.