The apartment that she, her parents and siblings lived in was infested with roaches and rats and they did not have any central heating.

When Kwok was five years old, her family emigrated to Brooklyn, New York from Hong Kong. Jean Kwok is the award-winning, New York Times and international bestselling Chinese American author of the novels Girl in Translation, Mambo in Chinatown, and Searching for Sylvie Lee, which was chosen as The Today Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick. 'This is a true beach read! You can't put it down!' – Jenna Bush Hager, Today Show Book Club PickChinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award It is a profound exploration of the many ways culture and language can divide us and the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone-especially those we love. secrets that will reveal more about Amy's complicated family-and herself-than she ever could have imagined.Ī deeply moving story of family, secrets, identity, and longing, Searching for Sylvie Lee is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive portrait of an immigrant family. Sylvie, the golden girl, kept painful secrets.

But instead of simple answers, she discovers something much more valuable: the truth. Terrified yet determined, Amy retraces her sister's movements, flying to the last place Sylvie was seen. Timid and shy, Amy has always looked up to her sister, the fierce and fearless protector who showered her with unconditional love.īut what happened to Sylvie? Amy and her parents are distraught and desperate for answers. Seven years older, Sylvie was raised by a distant relative in a faraway, foreign place, and didn't rejoin her family in America until age nine. Sylvie, the beautiful, brilliant, successful older daughter of the Lee family, flies to the Netherlands for one final visit with her dying grandmother-and then vanishes.Īmy, the sheltered baby of the Lee family, is too young to remember a time when her parents were newly immigrated and too poor to keep Sylvie. A twisting tale of love, loss, and dark family secrets.' - Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train and Into the WaterĪ poignant and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties binding three women-two sisters and their mother-in one Chinese immigrant family and explores what happens when the eldest daughter disappears, and a series of family secrets emerge, from the New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Translation It begins with a mystery. NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY New York Times A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick & Emma Roberts Belletrist Book Club Pick!

Searching for sylvie lee book review