An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge

For some reason I thought this book would be about Anna's mother and her aunts, not Anna, Andee and Fan. This isn't my favorite book in the series, but it's a pretty good continuation. Anna continues to be an avid reader, but again all the authors Cheng mentions are white (with the exception of one of the books about migrant workers in China, both of which are real books). I think she did this in The Year of the Book also which annoyed me then too. If you're going to name books, you could take the time to name some books by Chinese/Asian authors. Less EB White and more Laurence Yep please.

Also, I hated the part where Anna's mother tells her that Asians tend to develop later. Why is Cheng making blanket statements about Asian people? It's not even Chinese people, but Asian people. Apparently Cheng didn't get the memo that there are billions of Asian people and we all developed in different ways at different times? I would have understood if Anna's mother said she was a late developer so Anna might be too, but the blanket statement, especially coming from a white author was just ugh.

This WAS tempered when Cheng later had Anna's mother say that every Chinese family will grieve and respect their dead differently though. No blanket statements there, which I appreciated.

The Anna Wang series continues to be a decent MG series. There are moments where I'm reminded these books are written by a white woman, but there's been nothing so egregious yet that I feel they're terrible. I don't know if Cheng plans to continue the series, but I probably won't actively seek out any new additions to Anna's story.