Parachutes by Kelly Yang (review)

Claire’s poor exam results in China lead to her being sent to an LA-area prep school, which courts wealthy Chinese “parachutes,” teens who get dropped in the U.S. without their parents. Filipino-American Dani, a scholarship student at American Prep, and her mother host Claire for a fee. The two girls take turns narrating as Dani marvels at Claire’s privilege and aims for college via debate-team glory, and Claire negotiates the complex expectations of her strained family. Then Dani hits a roadblock when her debate coach sexually harasses her and then begins to retaliate as she resists and reports him; Claire’s über-rich boyfriend rapes her, and due to the prestige of his family, her parents encourage her to stay silent and remain with him. Yang (Front Desk, BCCB 5/18) writes astutely about the destabilizing combination of family expectations, copious wealth, and absence of adult supervision for Claire and her fellow parachutes, who lead a seemingly heady but ultimately emotionally precarious existence. She’s also sharply perceptive about the class and race complexities of a community that contains rich Asian visitors and American-born Asians, great wealth and straitened circumstances. The plotting is less effective, though, with rambling that slows the pace and an ambiguous moral position about luxury; the harassment and rape plots don’t get enough air among other points competing for attention, and their resolutions are oversimplified. However, it’s still a spirited slice of cultural life and story of girls facing cruel inequities, and Yang’s compelling author’s note about parachutes and her own experience of being sexually assaulted adds another poignant facet.