Ma-s first novel is a sweeping success-a standout from the many novels about Chinese assimilation and the families of Chinese immigrants-with a fascinating protagonist with a troubling past. Ari, age 18, is one of the -lost daughters of China-; she-s been brought to America by her single mom, Charlie. Ari is a -Whackadoodle,- a member of a group of adopted Chinese girls in the San Francisco area, but unlike them, her mother and family are Chinese (most of the other girls are adopted by white families). While Ari looks like her new family, nothing else about her fits easily in place. Early on, the book hints at a trauma that later becomes visible when Ari-s growing despair manifests itself as self-inflicted violence; her disconnection from herself is horrifying, especially since Ma implies that not all losses can be recovered. Meanwhile, the mistakes that haunt Charlie-s mom and Ari-s grandmother, Gran, are as affecting as those that haunt Ari; while Ari searches for value in her own life, Gran must make decisions with lasting repercussions, in addition the decisions of her past that continue to haunt her. As Gran says, -She has a future of mistakes ahead of her. I am old. My mistakes are all behind me.- This is a family saga of insight, regret, and pathos, and it is not to be missed. (May)

Ma turns conventional wisdom about adoption on its head in this probing novel about a young woman adopted from China as an infant. Ari is the kind of person who is abundant in real life but largely missing from fiction: a prickly, selfish, lost girl who can hardly stand the presence of her single mother, an American of Chinese ancestry. Tormented by feelings of abandonment ("the a-word") and chafed by her mother's circle's cheery attempts to connect their adopted children to "their" culture, Ari takes off. She abandons the tour group a friend is leading in China and goes off grid, with harrowing consequences. Fetched back home, she bides her time and leaves for Alaska, in search of an elusive father figure: a man who appears in a photo with Ari as a baby. Ma brings all sorts of relationships ther-daughter, sister-sister, friend-friend vivid life. And she painstakingly conveys that we are never just one thing, and can never be fixed by just one formula.