Ami Polonsky

Clara's sister Lola, who was adopted from China, has died of cancer, and neither Clara nor her parents are coping very well. When Clara finds a note in a purse in the mall, she becomes fixed on helping the note's author, a girl called Yuming who is trapped in a factory in China. Clara's family does go to China, but Clara and her parents have different missions: they are hoping the trip will help Clara let go of Lola when she chooses a place to scatter her ashes, while Clara is intent on finding and saving Yuming.

Clara and Yuming's stories twine around each other, brushing very close but never quite connecting. Yuming, along with three other children, escapes from the factory and, eventually, makes her way home. Though readers might share Clara's hope of finding Yuming, Yuming's actions to save herself are ultimately more satisfying, and both characters get a reasonably happy ending.

Global and touching.

Quotes

...I am overcome by a familiar understanding: A person can be here, and then, the next moment, they can be gone. (Yuming, 151)

I search each face that I pass. I have let too many people leave me. I won't let it happen again. (Yuming, 167)

I cannot imagine the past days without her, and this thought frightens me - how each of our decisions leads to the next, and how everything is dependent upon whatever came before. (Yuming, 188)

...I don't understand how it's possible for a thing to exist one second and vanish the next. (Clara, 211)

Sometimes there are things you just have to do. (Clara, 214)

What would Lola have said - not the Lola with long black hair who I keep imagining, but the real Lola - if I had whispered to her while she was dying that I was going to go to China to try to save another girl because I couldn't save her? (Clara, 216)… (mer)

It's 1987 in New York, and Iris Cohen's dad is dying. Two years ago, he and her mother divorced, and he moved in with J.R.; later, he was diagnosed with AIDS. Iris has made her peace with her parents' divorce and is still close to them both, but hates J.R. and blames him for getting her dad sick. After he dies, however, the only thing that seems to help Iris feel better is attending demonstrations and ACT UP meetings with J.R. and meeting her dad's friends there. There's also a new boy at school, Julian; the two become friends, and Julian is accepting and nonjudgmental, unlike Iris' school friends Will and Toby. (In fact, Julian is able to bring Will and Toby - and their old friend Mallory - around to support Iris.) Throughout, Iris refers to the acrostic poems that she and her dad exchanged almost daily for the two years between his divorce and his death; though they started as a joke (they agree that acrostics are the worst form of poetry), they are beautiful, touching, and deep.

Author's note.

See also: Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Quotes

...the anger bubbled up, evaporating, and I was left with insides as enormous and open as the universe. (61)

"All this sadness is making me so tired." (78)

...I wondered if it was ever truly possible to know someone. I mean, to really know what was in their head. (122)

"He found peace in being an activist, too." (140)

It made him feel less gone. (150)

I'm so mad all the time...what am I supposed to do with all this anger? (171)

"You know, when you know what you should say, but you can't say it?" (Julian, 188)

Feeling terrible while surrounded by friends was way less awful than feeling terrible alone. (190)

I was a more thoughtful kind of furious. I wanted to do something, but I wanted to do it the right way. (237-238)… (mer)