PositiveThe Boston GlobeIt is a lyrical and largely successful tale of the ties that bind and the experiences that strain them … Although Esch narrates, it’s Skeetah who is the heart of this novel, devoted as a lover to China, so attuned to her needs that he barely notices the squalor around him, or the crisis his father is heading for, or the way some of his friends are using his sister. Passionately committed to a path that will keep him wedged firmly in poverty and ignorance, Skeetah is the book’s tragic hero.
