Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher Harper Collins, and the author Christina Li for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I have nothing but good praise for Li's work. Li writes a well-crafted middle-grade/YA story. This book is perfect for the demographic and for Chinese/Asian Americans and represents San Francisco's Chinatown as an ethnography. Li places details of the city, such as the characters using public transportation through busses and the geographic areas of SF Chinatown. Li creates a well-rounded narrative of grief, the impact of losing a loved one, and how grief can cause misbehavior, such as Devi's character in Never Have I Ever (on Netflix by Mindy Kaling). This is also one of the few middle-grade/YA stories, including a 3rd/4th (depending on how you define it) Chinese or Asian American. I appreciate Ruby grew as a person and found her responses to her circumstances to be true and relatable. I also appreciate Li for keeping Ruby and Liam's relationship strictly platonic as friends matter too. Often friendship matters more than romance does. The lack of closure or resolve between Ruby's old friends is an element I enjoyed as well. ( )

Ruby is facing a whole summer with her grandmother, Nai-Nai, while her parents focus on their business and her older sister Viv checks items off her bucket list before leaving for college. Ruby loves her grandmother but harbors some anger at her for leaving the family right after Ye-Ye's death and staying with a friend for months. Ruby still misses Ye-Ye and his annual scavenger hunts throughout San Francisco, and when Ruby learns that May Wong's bakery may be forced to close by rising rents, she and her new friend Liam (who also hangs out with the grandmas at the senior center) come up with a plan to save it. It is too late for the bakery, despite the kids' best efforts, but Ruby and Liam help plan a wonderful goodbye party where everyone shares their memories of May's. At the same time, Ruby notices that Nai-Nai is beginning to be more and more forgetful, in frightening ways - like calling Ruby the wrong name, or getting lost in their neighborhood - and she has to find a way to tell her parents, even though that means things will change.

See also: Just Harriet by Elana K. Arnold, Maizy Chen's Last Chance by Lisa Yee

Quotes

At least if my parents were arguing with each other, they couldn't focus on me. But that didn't make me feel much better, not at all. (41)

"Do people always change? I feel like I've always stayed the same." (Ruby to Ye-Ye, 106)

"True friends will always come back to you eventually." (Ye-Ye to Ruby, 107)

"Uh, Ruby? You know that you don't have to be good at things to get to be someone's friend, right? They should just want to be friends with you. For, you know, you." (Liam, 148)

Sometimes I would feel something that hurt me so much and so deeply and I wouldn't know how to show how hurt I was or how to expel this furious sadness other than to let it spill out. To let it spread. (189)

Maybe a part of me never wanted the answer. (195)

"He remembers," Nai-Nai said. "You tell him you like something once, and he'd remember it for the rest of his life." (238)

What was it like to live in a hometown that was slipping away from you, the memories fading and the streets changing beneath your feet? (245) ( )

If you’ve enjoyed the Merci Suarez series, you’ll probably like Ruby Lost And Found, too, as this covers similar ground without feeling like a carbon copy.

I really do seem to love stories that explore the bond between an elderly character and a kid. This one featured a double dose of that through flashbacks of Ruby with the grandfather she’s lost and present day with the grandma from whom she’s been somewhat distanced. Those scenes were my favorite throughout the book, whether the moment was sad or sweet, it was always affecting.

Unfortunately a lot of kids will probably relate with Ruby being dropped/used by a friend, but maybe they’ll glean some hope from the new friendship that comes into Ruby’s life.

I did find Liam a little too good to feel entirely true, I just kind of think most kids are moodier than that (but maybe that was just me and Ruby at that age) still, I was happy Ruby had someone who provided such understanding at pretty much all times, particularly since her parents offered her so little throughout the story. I wasn’t fond of her parents for the majority of the book, especially when Ruby opened up to them about something that weighed heavily on her, I so wanted them to embrace her in that moment and show her compassion and they did the opposite, but there is definitely realism in that, there are parents so caught up in their careers and so reliant on the rules to parent their kid for them, that they can’t see or hear that their child needs more than a reprimand.

As for Ruby herself, she gets frustrated and loses her temper from time to time, she struggles with change, plus she clearly has a good heart, those traits combined to give Ruby such an authentic feel, she’s someone who’s flawed but generally means well and I wouldn’t at all be opposed to checking in with her in future stories. ( )