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bookishrealm 's review for:
Maizy Chen's Last Chance
by Lisa Yee
It's been a while since I've read a story within a story and this one does a great job of incorporating historical fiction with realistic fiction.
Maizy Chen's Last Chance focuses on Maizy Chen as she moves temporarily to Last Chance, Minnesota for the summer with her mother. They are making the trip to help Maizy's grandparents with their restaurant after her grandfather gets sick. While there Maizy meets a host of different characters who later serve as her support system. After a racially charged incident impacts the family, Maizy begins to talk to her grandfather about their family history. He tells her about Lucky Chen who immigrated from China to California for work. Through the stories, we learn that, like Maizy, Lucky Chen also faces more than a fair share of racially charged incidents. One incident in which he was accused of stealing money from an employer pushed him to move to Minnesota to work in restaurant.
There were a couple of things that I really enjoyed about this novel including the writing style and the historical elements. Yee has a writing style that's easy to follow and really captures the attention of readers. The decision to include family history as a separate narrative from Maizy's story was ingenious. It was a unique form of storytelling that had me wanting to learn more about Lucky Chen. It was also a great way to show the paralleling of discrimination faced by the Asian community that has continued on to Maizy's generation. While that is a huge part of the story, I loved all the other things that readers see Maizy do in this book like building a relationship with her grandfather, getting to know other people in town like Daisy. This book also isn't all roses and there are some difficult things that occur outside of the on the page racism. A lot of middle grade readers will connect to Maizy's reluctance to go to Minnesota and live in a new environment as well as the struggles that she has fitting in. This was such an emotional and impactful read and I learned a lot myself.
Maizy Chen's Last Chance focuses on Maizy Chen as she moves temporarily to Last Chance, Minnesota for the summer with her mother. They are making the trip to help Maizy's grandparents with their restaurant after her grandfather gets sick. While there Maizy meets a host of different characters who later serve as her support system. After a racially charged incident impacts the family, Maizy begins to talk to her grandfather about their family history. He tells her about Lucky Chen who immigrated from China to California for work. Through the stories, we learn that, like Maizy, Lucky Chen also faces more than a fair share of racially charged incidents. One incident in which he was accused of stealing money from an employer pushed him to move to Minnesota to work in restaurant.
There were a couple of things that I really enjoyed about this novel including the writing style and the historical elements. Yee has a writing style that's easy to follow and really captures the attention of readers. The decision to include family history as a separate narrative from Maizy's story was ingenious. It was a unique form of storytelling that had me wanting to learn more about Lucky Chen. It was also a great way to show the paralleling of discrimination faced by the Asian community that has continued on to Maizy's generation. While that is a huge part of the story, I loved all the other things that readers see Maizy do in this book like building a relationship with her grandfather, getting to know other people in town like Daisy. This book also isn't all roses and there are some difficult things that occur outside of the on the page racism. A lot of middle grade readers will connect to Maizy's reluctance to go to Minnesota and live in a new environment as well as the struggles that she has fitting in. This was such an emotional and impactful read and I learned a lot myself.