American Panda by Gloria Chao

Publisher: Simon Pulse
On Sale Date: February 6th 2018
Pages: 311

Age Range: Young Adult

Mei Lu is a seventeen year old teen with the most ambitious future career plans that her Taiwanese-American parents have laid out for her; she is skipping fourrth grade, and is accepted to MIT in Boston to become a doctor. Then the plan is she will marry a fellow (preferrably Taiwanese) Ivy League graduate and get children.
But as easy as this plan sounds in theory, ofcourse life goes different. She starts seeing a Japanese guy Darren Takahashi (totally forbidden by her mom) and she is afraid of germs, falls asleep during biology class, loves to dance ballet (also strictly forbidden by her mom) and asks herselfs more and more the simple question; do I really want to become a doctor??

With her mom out of sight in college, Mei starts to experiment with the sudden freedom she seems to have, be it that her mom calls her and leaves her voicemail messages at any given time, wanting to know exactly what she is doing and at what time. Which leads to some situations when she doesn't answer her phone and her mom is standing in front of her college with the police in tow just to make sure Mei isn't kidnapped. Further on, she gets in touch with her older brother Xing. Years ago, her parents abandoned him from the family after he started dating his girlfriend Esther. Mei doesn't agree with this and there starts a nice bond between brother and sister. But then her parents find out she is seeing him and that she is still dating Darran  college and that she doesn't get the best grades, and later on, that she just doesn't want to become a doctor, and then, just like her brother, they kick her out of their lives..

At firsthand, by looking at the cover, you would think this is a cute middle grade novel about a Taiwanese-American girl. Nothing of that. This book is definately for young adults and I guess everyone above that age. I wouldn't go for it as a younger reader because in the first part there are some scenes not that suitable. But besides that, this book ROCKS!
It is a very well written and gripping book about a girl that just wants to escape of the claws of her strict tiger parents. What starts with some overcontrolling texts messages from her mom at the end of every chapter turns into way more controlling. Luckily she finds some freedom at school and when she is with her brother. It's understandable why her parents do what they do, they want the best for her, but they just overmanaged her life. What they do when they find out she is seeing her brother was just heartbreaking, and something Mei really didn't deserve. Just because his girlfriend is something that is believed to be bad luck in Taiwanese culture: she can't get pregnant. In the end though there are some first steps to a reconciliation which was quite a good ending. Further on, It was very entertaining to follow Mei at college and her romance with Darren, which was just so beautiful. 

I found this book just very beautiful, moving gripping and well written, so I highly recommend it to read!!