Meddelin Chan

Meddelin Chen is the protagonist of the novel. She grows up with three aunts and Ma. All the men in her family leave, and all her older, male cousins take off after high school. When she is 17, she secretly applies to Columbia, despite the fact that she knows Ma and her aunts expect her to stay near home since she is a girl. When she gets in, she burns the letter and declines the offer. Instead, she goes off to UCLA. To her surprise, she feels more at home than ever living on the campus.

For the first time in her life, she is living outside her family’s constant gaze and control, and she is wildly happy. She likes living with her college roommate, Selena, and she becomes best friends with handsome Nathan during freshman orientation. During sophomore year, they admit their feelings for one another...