I am not an own voices reviewer so please check out various Chinese reviewers, bloggers, booktubers and bookstagrammers for a more honest and comprehensive review.

I gave this book a 5 out of 5 stars.

This story is truly an inspirational story for and about immigrant families who have to leave everything in their home country and start anew in a different one. It's especially difficult if the new country's culture and language is completely different than the home country. I totally identified with Mia and her family's struggle with assimilation and learning English because my family immigrated here and had to do the same. 

Mia is such an amazing character. The amount of optimism and conviction she has as a 10 year old is super inspiring and how she thought of different ways to help people was so inspiring. This story filled me with such joy and anger at times (due to events in the story), it's so good. I'm so amazed that Kelly Yang could write so much depth and complexities in a story that stars a ten year old! The nuances and takes on racism, prejudice, the immigrant struggle is really on par with what you could expect in a novel targeted towards a young adult audience.

I loved the found family aspect that Mia found with the motel community (weeklies, people who came in and out of the motel, the neighboring businesses, etc). I think this would be such a good read for kids because then they could step in the shoes of their classmates and friends who have gone through the immigrant experience and just open up their minds.

I can't recommend this book enough and I think everyone should read it!