Characters are my favorite element to a story, so naturally I loved this book, which is basically a character portrait of a Chinese-American family of five in a small town in the late 70's. Though it's heartbreaking and each of the character's flaws are strikingly evident, I loved the honesty and realness of each of these characters. The author treats them tenderly; you can tell that she loves them a great deal. 
 They are ordinary characters dealing with ordinary struggles--and then Lydia, the eldest daughter, dies. The story is told mostly through flashbacks. You know Lydia is dead from the first sentence, and then you learn how her parents, James and Marilyn, grew up and met and married; how Nath was the neglected oldest child who could do nothing right in the light of Lydia, the loved and favored child; how Lydia did not want her parents' failed dreams put on her and suffocated under their expectations and love; how Hannah, always ignored and always invisible, still loves her family purely. 
 (view spoiler)[ Though Lydia's death is actually a tragic and heartbreaking accident, I like that the book ends with a touch of hope--that perhaps her death was not worthless or meaningless. Her death causes her family to speak openly and honestly with each other for the first time, and the result is a renewed love between each of them. (hide spoiler)] 
 With all the racial tensions in our world today, stories like this--that force you to look at a person from all sides--are more important than ever.