A Tender Age cover art

A Tender Age

A Novel

Pre-order free with Premium Plus
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

A Tender Age

By: Chang-rae Lee
Pre-order free with Premium Plus

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pre-order for $29.16

Pre-order for $29.16

About this listen

A NEW YORK TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026

“Who is a greater novelist than Chang-rae Lee?”—The Los Angeles Times

"He has redefined not only what it means to be American, but the fabric of the Great American Novel itself." —Jhumpa Lahiri


From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, a story of guilt, innocence, and a boy on the cusp of adolescence.


A spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics as seen through the confused eyes of a prepubescent child of immigrants, A Tender Age joins the rich tradition of the American bildungsroman. The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family.

Devastating in its emotional precision, A Tender Age captures a family and community in striking distance of the American dream, and a young person on the precipice of adult knowledge, looking at his own culpability and looking away—then thinking about it for the rest of his life.
Coming of Age Genre Fiction Literary Fiction United States World Literature

Critic Reviews

Praise for Chang-rae Lee

“I have no choice but to ask: Who is a greater novelist than Chang-rae Lee?”The Los Angeles Times

“Nothing is rushed; nothing is overlooked… Lee understands that in art and in stories what is perhaps most valuable is not what can be explained but what can be felt.” –The Boston Globe

“The prose Chang-rae Lee writes is elliptical, riddling, poetic...beautifully made.” —The New Yorker

“[Chang-rae Lee] explores the fundamental human desires to be seen and to love.” The Washington Post

“Lee’s writing style, as usual, is alive with wit and satiric social commentary… boisterous and fun.” —NPR, Fresh Air
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.