Author: Kay Honeyman
Publisher: Arthur A Levine
Rating: WORTHY!
Chan Jade Moon is the only daughter in her family of no sons (so she believes), and being born under the sign of the Fire Horse, everyone is wary of her. She is a fireball, prickly, feisty, independent, and almost seventeen and not married, which is fine by her. When Sterling Promise arrives, bringing a worldly, traveled air with him, she is as fascinated by him as she is repelled. He's the adopted son of an uncle she didn’t know she had - an uncle who has died, but who has left behind him the promise of a new life in the Americas. Unfortunately, that promise is for Jade Moon's father, Chan Jan Wai, not for his daughter, and she is so angry that her life will be no more than a marriage to a brick-maker and subsequent oblivion that she can hardly stand it. Just when she despairs the most, her father unexpectedly reveals that she will travel with him to America.
On the appointed day, she sits in the back of the cart while the men sit up front, and she marks the spot where lies the flat rock which itself marks the furthest point she has ever traveled from her village. Next stop, Hong Kong, and beyond that, the ocean. Jade Moon finds every single thing fascinating on the trip because she has never seen anything like it before. She learns that her father's name in America will have to be the name of his dead uncle, Sung Feng Hao, since it is those papers he is using to enter the country. Jade Moon and Sterling Promise must shed their last names and become members of the fictitious Sung family, too. The processing on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay is brutal on their senses, especially upon the women, who feel cheapened, even raped by it. And it goes on forever.
A real shock comes when Jade Moon discovers that Sterling Promise is hardly sterling. He has used Jan Wai purely for the purpose of getting himself into the US. He had no interest in seeing Jade Moon or her father there at all. Jade Moon becomes angry and steals Sterling Promise's papers, shearing off her hair, taking some of his clothes, and getting off the island and into San Franciso disguised as a boy, where she almost immediately runs into trouble only to be rescued by more trouble in the form of a couple of boys from one of the Chinese tongs, an organized crime mob run by Mr Hon. Here she learns to fight and eventually takes the lone Irish guy - a door guard who is teaching her to fight - into her confidence, revealing that she's a girl. He arranges through his Irish contacts to have her "arrested" by a cop who will take her to a safe house where abused women are taken and helped.
Jade moon gives up her chance to escape when she sees a friend from Angel Island getting off the ferry. She knows that this woman is going to be sold into prostitution because that's why she and her two colleagues from the Hon tong are there. Jade Moon gives this girl the code word to pass to the cop, triggering her "arrest" instead of Jade Moon, who resigns herself once more being in the debt and under the thumb of Mr Hon.
Well, the story doesn't end there, but the spoilers do. This novel, set in the 1920s, was stunning, and I can't believe it hasn't had wider publicity and greater success than it has. It would make a stunning movie, but until then, read this novel. Embrace it and enjoy it. It's wonderful! Finally, a YA story with a strong girl who never takes a back seat to anyone. There's even a romance which will come at you unexpectedly, and which - and yes, I know this is a novelty in YA fiction - and which actually makes sense and is realistic! Can you stand it? Yes! Amazing! I thoroughly recommend this novel.
