The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Review

This was a really engaging novel that follows the main character, Li-yan, and her family through her childhood in a remote Chinese tea village into adulthood. I particularly liked learning about Akha culture and seeing the tensions between tradition and modernity arise over the span of the story, and I liked the "no coincidence, no story" thread that ran through it as well. I liked the characters more than the style, which seemed fairly direct to me.