Girl in Translation

By: Jean Kwok

Narrated by: Grayce Wey

Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Introducing a fresh, exciting Chinese-American voice, an inspiring debut about an immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures.

When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life--like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition--Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.

Through Kimberly's story, author Jean Kwok, who also emigrated from Hong Kong as a young girl, brings to the page the lives of countless immigrants who are caught between the pressure to succeed in America, their duty to their family, and their own personal desires, exposing a world that we rarely hear about. Written in an indelible voice that dramatizes the tensions of an immigrant girl growing up between two cultures, surrounded by a language and world only half understood, Girl in Translation is an unforgettable and classic novel of an American immigrant--a moving tale of hardship and triumph, heartbreak and love, and all that gets lost in translation.

©2010 Jean Kwok (P)2010 Penguin

Critic reviews

"Searing debut novel... poignant." (USA Today)

"Kwok drops you right inside Kimberly's head, adding Chinese idioms to crisp dialogue. And the book's lesson - that every choice comes at the expense of something else - hits home in every language." (People)

"Consistently compelling." (Entertainment Weekly)

I enjoyed it to the very end.

Where does Girl in Translation rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a great read, so I think it's a top pick!

Any additional comments?

Spend your monthly credit on it, you will enjoy!

Loved, loved, loved

Don't miss this one. Left me wanting more. Grayce Wey was the perfect choice to narrate.

Unexpected Humor...

I was listening along and learning so much about a culture, a destination and an era that I know nothing about, and enjoying doing so, when the book unexpectantly went from good to great. The hidden humor did me in. Once I realized that author had purposely written specific words to refelct what someone who had a limited English vocabulary would have heard, instead of what was actually said, I was hooked. I enjoyed every minute and would love to see something else from both this author and narrator. Enjoy :o)

Well written, powerful story of perseverance

This is a powerful, multidimensional story. Perseverance, hidden surprise, cross culture, and life are just a few of those dimensions

Second time for me!!

Frustrating!! AWESOME! SAD! One of my top 5, and I read alot of books!!

Superb

Elegant and emotional from start to finish. A poignant newfound favorite book that I will be recommending to all my friends and family.

Precious

An amazing read!!! The author draws us into the heartaches and triumphs of a Chinese American girl growing up in America. Through her life we learn much about the Chinese culture and get a peek into what it is like to grow up in this land. The narration is wonderful and you can almost see the young girl in your mind's eye. The characters are well developed and very believeable. I will probably read this again I enjoyed it so much. Worth listening to. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good read(listen)!!!

Easy Self-Affirming Listen for an Immigrant

The book was an easy listen. It features a protagonist who lives the hard poor immigrant life, and excels at whatever she attempts. She does good. As other immigrants may have secretly felt, I too secretly feel "We had it harder than the Americans who were born here and we did waaay better than average". I admit to this guilty pleasure, that I found affirmed in the novel. But the novel's true conflicts about love and romance were superficial, and did not give me insight into a sensitive or interesting soul. So it is very likely that I will forget this story.
The narration was very skilled. I am not sure about the accuracy of the Chinese-English accent, but it sounded convincing to me. If you happen to be Chinese-American, though, you should check an audio sample before buying the book. (I often find narrators' attempts at Indian English inaccurate and jarring.) The narrator uses a very non-American sounding accent when the protagonist is a newly arrived immigrant child. Then, ever so slowly and smoothly, by the end of the book when the protagonist is grown up, the accent has changed to that of an educated, highly assimilated Chinese-American. This allowed me to relive many aspects of the immigrant experience in a way that words would not be able to express.

Incredible Story, Well-Told

This is the story of a mother and daughter who emigrate from Hong Kong to New York. As they are brought to New York by family, they have hopes of a good new life, but that family ends up forcing them to live in unbelievably poor conditions. The narration is solid and the story is incredible in that, if it is in fact true, it is hard to imagine someone going through what the mother and daughter do.

Fits in with the times

I do enjoy period books, but love reading books about immigrants to the USA just the same. The reader will totally relate to the protagonist of the story and although the upholding of traditions, the stubborn adherence to old world must dos and the waste of energy, love and opportunities missed are well described in this book. The reader can't but help to admire the tenacity and the survival instinct of the immigrants, yet is dumbfounded at their strength of survival on one hand and then the sheer stupidity in risking their health and life on the other hand. I found the story hopeless in the sense, that although the main character made something out of her life, i.e. academically speaking, but lacked the meaning of life due traditions they implemented in the new world they tried so hard to flee from in the old world.