The paper stresses that the book is not written from a Chinese viewpoint, but rather from the view of a first-
generation,
Chinese-American daughter of immigrant parents. The author points out that it is also a story of an adolescent girl's journey into adulthood, the story of how one person integrates all elements of her life, including her
relationship with her parents and other family members, into the composite of experience known as personality. The paper describes the relation of mother and daughter and states that the wear and tear on such a relationship must have been difficult for both the mother and the daughter; however, the result was an independent, strong, and valuable person.