Saturday, July 26, 2014

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow



My Ratings:
Vocabulary:  *****
Ingredients: *****
Satisfaction: ***** 
Lexile Level: HL730L (HL- appeals to readers at a more mature developmental level)
Genre:  Realistic Fiction
My Opinions: Bitter Melon is about a Chinese girl named Fei Ting, whose name literally means stop flying. She is a daughter of a mother who regards every penny she earns as a piece of gold. Her mother is very picky and strict. No boyfriends because it would cause a distraction for her daughter. No extra curricular activities because it would become a distraction. She wants her daughter to get a high score in SAT so that she can get into UC Berkeley. Her point was that she was doing everything for her daughter. However, Fei Ting has other plans. After a schedule mix-up, she is put into speech instead of calculus where she finds out more about herself and her true feelings through expressing herself. Finding speech as a gift causes her to enroll in several competitions where she gets closer to a boy named Derek. Everything now becomes a secret in her life. The speech competitions, Derek, going to a school dance, working a summer job, not going to her expensive SAT classes, and worst of all, wanting to go to Scripps rather than UC Berkeley. She thought she could hide all this from her mom...at least until the day Theresa's mother found Fei Ting's speech trophy hidden at Theresa's home.

I could definitely relate to a lot of this. My parents are not strict like her mom. They let me go to school dances, hang out with friends, and participate in extra curricular activities. However, the same sternness when it comes to academics and getting into a top college applies to both my parents and Fei Ting's mom. Although they mean for the best for us, the pressure sometimes is too much and Chow does a great job delivering the message of speaking out the truth and being true to yourself throughout the book.

Copyright (C) Bookaroma 2014

1 comment:

  1. I read this book and it's amazing. Thank you for sharing this book!

    ReplyDelete