China Boy cover art

China Boy

Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

China Boy

By: Gus Lee
Narrated by: Austin Ku
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

“What a knockout. An incredibly rich and new voice for American literature…China Boy grabs the reader’s heart and won’t let go.”—Amy Tan, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club

“A fascinating, evocative portrait of the Chinese community in California in the 1950s, caught between two complex, demanding cultures.”—The New York Times Book Review

Kai Ting is the only American-born son of a Shanghai family that fled China during Mao’s revolution. Growing up in a San Francisco multicultural, low-income neighborhood, Kai is caught between two worlds—embracing neither the Chinese nor the American way of life. After his mother’s death, Kai is suddenly plunged into American culture by his stepmother, who tries to erase every vestige of China from the household.

Warm, funny and deeply moving, China Boy is a brilliantly rendered novel of family relationships, culture shock, and the perils of growing up in an America of sharp differences and shared humanity.
Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature China Heartfelt

Critic Reviews

Praise for China Boy

“What a knockout. An incredibly rich and new voice or American literature...China Boy grabs the reader’s heart and won’t let go...A wonder of a story.”—Amy Tan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club

“It would be hard to find a more all-American story than the delightful China Boy. Lee is a natural storyteller.”—TIME

“Marvelous...one small boy’s adjustment to Western culture...a pure delight.”—The Washington Post Book World

“A robust, startling book...hilariously poignant...a fascinating, evocative portrait of the Chinese community in California in the 1950s, caught between two complex, demanding cultures.”—The New York Times Book Review
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.