RABBIT MOON by Jennifer Heigh

4 stars

This story, partially set in my hometown of Newton, MA, along with the streets of Shanghai, in part brings powerfully alive the consequences of well-to-do American families adopting unwanted Chinese girls during the era of Chinese one-child policy and the preference for male heirs. It’s also in part about a family’s estrangement from their oldest (white) daughter, Lindsey Litzvak, who has moved to live in Shanghai as a call girl.

The novel opens with a hit-and-run in the early morning hours of downtown Shanghai that leaves Lindsey hospitallzed in a coma. Just 22 years old, Lindsey had come to China to teach English with her boyfriend, but when her boyfriend heads back home Lindsey heads to Shanghai based on an employment offer to become a high-end call girl. Lindsey divorced parents, Claire and Aaron, who have been completely in the dark rush to her side in a Shanghai hospital, where they struggle based on the language barrier to figure put what’s going on medically with their daughter. Their younger 11-year-old Chinese-adopted daughter Grace in the meantime languishes in an extended session of summer camp, also in the dark about her much beloved, close sister.

Most touching in the story is Grace, who has to come to terms with her Chinese heritage along with her resentment of her adopted parents’ trying to constantly connect her to the Chinese culture. She’s forged a super close relationship with her sister and resents her parents’ seeming trying to alienate her from her American self. Slowly, Grace has to reconcile her emerging competing inner versions of self.

Meanwhile, Lindsey’s decision to move from an upper middle-class family to call girl seems superficial and not quite believable. Lindsey justifies sticking at it to afford living there as a American college drop-out, but that strains credibility for a highly risky and self-denigrating choice.

Shanghai itself becomes its own powerful character in the novel, gleamingly modern, increasingly unaffordable to most, clogged with pollution, and ultimately heartless.

All that being said, the novel kept me glued reading with its taut storyline and ambiguities around the choices of Lindsey and her parents.

Thanks to Little, Brown and Company as well as NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

Stacy DeBroff

Stacy DeBroff, founder and CEO of Mom Central.com and social and digital consultancy, Influence Central, is a social media strategist, attorney, and best-selling parenting author. A sought-after expert for national media, she trend-spots regularly with national brands and speaks frequently to national and international audiences on a wide range of subjects, including influencer marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, and consumer trends. A passionate cook, gardener, reader, and tennis player, she adores this new chapter of post-college-age parenting.