Katie Zhao

Interesting novel. The author must have encountered a lot of racism in college to write it as it seems to be very raw in the way she writes what happens to the main characters. It made me wonder if this happens often in the US, as in Australia, I don't really see evidence of this happening in my educational world....maybe I am naïve.
Anyway, to the plot.... Asian American Anna starts at university close to where her parents have a bakery and decides to stay on campus at a dorm. She encounters some racism and also discovers that her arch enemy from Primary school Chris is also at uni with her and his parents have opened a competing bakery against her parents! She can't seem to make friends except for a girl Jane on-line 2 years senior who helps her with notes and listens to her gripes about the competing bakery. When Chris' parents bakery is fire-bombed and there are racist slogans written on it Anna is worried her parents may be next except she begins to suspect it may have been Jane. When she finally runs into a girl who looks like Jane's profile picture and the girl doesn't know who she is, Anna gets scared....who is it? Is she being stalked? Is she next?… (mehr)

audio teen fiction (~7.5 hrs) - bookish, introverted incoming freshman and honor student (whose parents run a local Chinese bakery/tea shop) at a Michigan college resolves to be more adventurous (i.e., try going to parties) while investigating the mysterious unsolved murder of her former babysitter at the same school seven years ago and dealing with an alarming rise in anti-Asian hate crime. Her roommate is a rich socialite who wonders aloud why "all the international students" are in their hall, and there is also an annoying (but attractive) Chinese-American boy tossed into the mix.

good storytelling and effective narration by Elaine Kao but mystery fans may get frustrated with the slow pace of Anna's detective work. It takes her way too long to get on the trail of the secret society that supposedly doesn't exist anymore but at least the end resolution makes sense.… (mehr)