Crash Landing

Gr 10 Up–Jessica Wong, aka Jay, is ready for senior year. She is ready to be done with  high school, be an artist, and have some control over her life by getting out from under her protective parents’ restrictions. Immigrants to Vancouver, Canada, from Hong Kong, they do their best to provide Jay and her sister with the things they never had growing up and try to keep their culture alive in ways that can feel uncomfortable to the assimilating teens. Jay strives to be a good student and a good daughter, even if her parents don’t really know how to see her. Then Ash rolls into view, a mysterious transfer student from a nearby high school who can skate way better than any other girl Jay’s ever seen. Ash needs someone to capture her tricks on film; it just so happens that one of Jay’s hobbies is iMovie editing. The two become fast friends—and more? This queer coming-of-age debut leans on Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to justify its slow pacing, and skateboarding jargon may alienate less experienced readers and the uninitiated. Motivated YA readers, however, will find the pace picks up after the first 100 pages or so, and will find characters with relatable depth and endings crafted with both sensitivity and satisfaction in mind. Main characters are Chinese Canadian, one is Korean Canadian, and several have experienced foster care and parental abuse. There is smoking and drug use. Sexuality is explored through internal perception and expressions of physical affection.