Author(s): Mandy Hager

NZ Teen Fiction

Eighteen-year-old Grace has struggled all her life with her place in this family and in the world. Obviously of Asian descent, she has been unable to get the truth about her parentage from her mother, a woman who is struggling with her own demons, that date back to her life in Taiwan where she survived an earthquake while giving birth to Grace. The two were evacuated back to New Zealand, never to return.

Grace has often had to be the adult in this dysfunctional relationship, and now she is faced with the fact that her only rock in her uncertain world, her grandmother, may be fading into a senility of sorts, and her long-lost best friend from childhood has returned to Wellington without having made any effort to find her. Let down by those around her and faced with having to take on the burden of caring for her mother, Grace is teetering on the edge. Her only relief is imaginary conversations with Bruce Lee and her lessons and tutor in martial arts.