Summary

The novel is narrated in the past tense with a close third on Ivy, the main character. In “Chapter One,” the narrator tells us that Ivy was a thief. No one ever suspected because she was an unassuming young Asian girl whose only source of vanity was her big, brown eyes. She hated her face and would have traded it for a white one if she could. Her parents had immigrated to the United States when she was two, leaving her with her maternal grandmother, Meifeng. They had lived alone together until she was five and her parents had sent for her. She had screamed and cried at leaving Meifeng in the airport, and she had not known the Asian couple or their baby who met her in Massachusetts. Her parents were strict and believed in corporal punishment, but they did not make...