Recommendations based on Girl in Translationby Jean Kwok

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. The Language of Flowers

    by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
    A young woman's journey of healing and redemption through the power of flowers.

    The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in ... (Goodreads)

  2. Dreams of Joy

    by Lisa See
    A young woman's journey to discover her Chinese roots, only to find unexpected truth and tragedy.

    Dreams of Joy is organized in four sections—The Tiger Leaps, The Rabbit Dodges, The Dog Grins, and The Dragon Rises. Joy is the Tiger – romantic, artistic, rash, and impulsive. In this novel, unlike ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Sarah's Key

    by Tatiana de Rosnay
    A French journalist unravels an untold story of the Holocaust, uncovering hidden secrets.

    From beloved international sensation and #1, New York Times, bestselling author Tatiana de Rosnay come's her most celebrated novel, Sarah's Key,—now in mass market paperback!, Paris, July 1942: ... (Barnes & Noble)

  4. The Invention of Wings

    by Sue Monk Kidd
    A powerful story about a girl's journey to freedom, despite the limitations of slavery.

    Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now ... (Goodreads)

  5. Cutting for Stone

    by Abraham Verghese
    A sweeping journey of two twin brothers and their search for identity, belonging and family.

    The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission Hospital (called "Missing" in accordance with the local pronunciation), Addis Ababa , in ... (Wikipedia)

  6. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    by Betty Smith
    A coming of age story set in Brooklyn, depicting a young girl's struggles and growth.

    The novel is split into five "books", each covering a different period in the characters' lives. Book One opens in 1912 and introduces 11-year-old Francie Nolan, who lives in the Williamsburg ... (Wikipedia)

  7. And the Mountains Echoed

    by Khaled Hosseini
    Interconnected stories of family and love, tracing the consequences of decisions made throughout life.

    The novel opens in the year 1952. Saboor, an impoverished farmer from the fictional village of Shadbagh, decides to sell his three-year-old daughter Pari to a wealthy, childless couple in Kabul. ... (Wikipedia)

  8. Little Bee

    by Chris Cleave
    A Nigerian refugee's quest for survival and a British woman's search for redemption.

    Using alternating first-person perspectives , the novel tells the stories of Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee, and Sarah O'Rourke (née Summers), a magazine editor from Surrey . After spending two years ... (Wikipedia)

  9. Between Shades of Gray

    by Ruta Sepetys
    A young girl's story of survival and resilience in the face of oppression during World War II.

    Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family ... (Goodreads)

  10. Secret Daughter

    by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
    An Indian woman's journey to find her daughter and redeem her past.

    Somer's life is everything she imagined it would be — she's newly married and has started her career as a physician in San Francisco — until she makes the devastating discovery she never will be able ... (Goodreads)

  11. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

    by Jamie Ford
    A touching story of the intersection of love, family, and culture during World War II.

    Henry Lee, the son of Chinese parents in Seattle , Washington, is the only Asian child at his elementary school. His father makes him wear an "I Am Chinese" button so he will not be mistaken for a ... (Wikipedia)

  12. The Namesake

    by Jhumpa Lahiri
    A young Indian-American's journey of reconciling two different cultures and his own identity.

    The story begins as Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a young Bengali couple, leave Calcutta , India, and settle in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts . Ashoke is an engineering student at the ... (Wikipedia)

  13. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

    by Lisa See
    Story of two women in 19th-century China, exploring the power of female friendship.

    In rural Hunan province called Puwei (nicknamed the Common Beauty Village), a county in China, Lily is destined to become a, laotong, pair with Snow Flower, a girl of the same age from Tongkou (the ... (Wikipedia)

  14. Songs of Willow Frost

    by Jamie Ford
    A young Chinese-American boy searches for his mother in Depression-era Seattle. A tale of love, loss, and hope.

    Twelve-year-old William Eng, a Chinese-American boy, has lived at Seattle’s Sacred Heart Orphanage ever since his mother’s listless body was carried away from their small apartment five years ago. On ... (Goodreads)

  15. The Kitchen House

    by Kathleen Grissom
    A young Irish girl is taken in by a plantation family in Virginia and becomes entangled in the lives of the slaves who work there.

    When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while onboard ship ... (Goodreads)

  16. Booked

    by Kwame Alexander
    A young boy navigates life, love, and soccer while dealing with his parents' separation. Written in verse.

    New York Times, Bestseller ∙ National Book Award Longlist ∙ ILA-CBC Children's Choice List ∙ ALA Notable Children’s Book ∙ Book Links’ Lasting Connections ∙ Kirkus Best Book ∙ San Francisco Chronicle ... (Barnes & Noble)

  17. The Paris Wife

    by Paula McLain
    A woman's journey of self-discovery, navigating the complexities of a passionate and tumultuous relationship.

    The Paris Wife focuses on the romance, marriage and divorce of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson, who met when Hemingway was 20 years old, and Richardson 28. They marry and move ... (Wikipedia)

  18. House Rules

    by Jodi Picoult
    A family's struggle with Autism, and the power of acceptance and understanding.

    Eighteen-year-old Jacob Hunt lives with his mother Emma and his younger brother, Theo. Jacob has Asperger's syndrome , then considered a form of high-functioning autism . Jacob lives by a highly ... (Wikipedia)

  19. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

    by Beth Hoffman
    A young girl's journey of self-discovery, gaining strength and resilience in the face of adversity.

    Twelve-year-old CeeCee is in trouble. For years she’s been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille— the crown-wearing, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town. Though it’s 1967 and ... (Goodreads)

  20. The Tiger's Wife

    by Téa Obreht
    A young doctor in a war-torn Balkan country uncovers the secrets of her grandfather's past, including his relationship with a mysterious woman known as the Tiger's Wife.

    Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker ’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will ... (Goodreads)

  21. Shanghai Girls

    by Lisa See
    Two sisters navigate the turmoil of 1930s Shanghai, while struggling to protect each other.

    Shanghai Girls is divided into three parts: Fate, Fortune, and Destiny. Here See treats Chinese immigration from a personal view through Pearl's narration. In, On Gold Mountain, she objectively ... (Wikipedia)

  22. The Story of Beautiful Girl

    by Rachel Simon
    A love story between two people with intellectual disabilities, on a journey to find home and belonging.

    It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and ... (Goodreads)

  23. I've Got Your Number

    by Sophie Kinsella
    A young woman's chaotic life is turned upside-down when she finds a stranger's lost phone.

    Poppy Wyatt loses her engagement ring, which has been in her fiancé's family for three generations, on the day that his parents arrive from the US and in the following panic, she also ends up losing ... (Wikipedia)

  24. The God of Small Things

    by Arundhati Roy
    A moving story of two siblings growing up in India, exploring love, politics, and class.

    The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a skyblue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car ... (Goodreads)

  25. Orphan Train

    by Christina Baker Kline
    A story of two women's intertwined lives, spanning generations and crossing continents.

    The #1 New York Times Bestseller “A lovely novel about the search for family that also happens to illuminate a fascinating and forgotten chapter of America’s history. Beautiful.”—Ann Packer Moving ... (Barnes & Noble)

  26. A Little Life

    by Hanya Yanagihara
    A powerful tale of four friends navigating life's hardships and the devastating effects of trauma.

    The novel follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained ... (Wikipedia)

  27. The Light Between Oceans

    by M.L. Stedman
    A lighthouse keeper and his wife make a heartbreaking decision that has lifelong repercussions.

    Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found, here, Australia, 1926. After four harrowing years fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to take a job as the lighthouse ... (Goodreads)

  28. The Other Boleyn Girl

    by Philippa Gregory
    A historical fiction recounting the rivalry between two sisters vying for the love of King Henry VIII.

    In 1521 England, Queen Catherine of Aragon's failure to provide King Henry VIII a male heir has strained their marriage. Thomas Boleyn and his brother-in-law Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, plan ... (Wikipedia)

  29. Tell the Wolves I'm Home

    by Carol Rifka Brunt
    A young girl's journey of grief and healing as she discovers the secrets of her beloved uncle's life.

    June Elbus is a 14-year-old girl living in Westchester in 1986. She is in love with her gay uncle, Finn Weiss, a fact she is scared to admit even to herself. Finn is dying of AIDS. Being a ... (Wikipedia)

  30. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

    by Sherman Alexie
    A young Native American boy's struggles to survive in a difficult world.

    The book follows a fourteen-year-old boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation near Wellpinit, Washington for a school year. It is told in episodic diary style, moving from the ... (Wikipedia)