Enim illum ut quae delectus.

Read for the 2016 YA/MG Book Battle. Mai's summer is ruined when her parents ship her off to Vietnam to be company for her grandmother, who's received word that her husband, lost to The War decades ago, might still be alive. Ba is returning to the village where she and Ong lived, which means Mai will have the chance to "discover her roots" as her mother puts it. Mai can only see a summer away from Southern California, which is the only roots she knows--her friends and her life and the boy she has a crush on. Learning otherwise is going to change her. Unfortunately, Mai's bratty attitude makes her really unsympathetic to this adult reader. Her parents aren't asking all that much of her--not even an entire summer--and I never felt that they were being terribly unfair. And what Mai leaves behind doesn't seem like much to sacrifice, particularly her "best friend" Montana, who comes across as more of a frenemy than anything else. Mai's worried that Montana will steal the boy she has a crush on (whom she invariably refers to as HE and HIM, not quite able to say his name even in the privacy of her own head, which became seriously annoying) because that's the sort of thing Montana does. And yet Mai's supposed to be a smart girl, all honors classes and SAT vocabulary. Possibly I'm expecting too much of a twelve-year-old, and intelligence doesn't translate to emotional maturity. But it was very difficult to feel sympathetic. On the other hand, the writing is extremely evocative, bringing to life the summer weather of Vietnam (or Viet Nam; Mai realizes how differently she sees the country when she thinks of it with those different names). I felt every moment of sweaty, wet heat and every mosquito bite. I enjoyed Mai's developing relationship with her cousin (however distantly related) Ut, whose friendship makes Montana's false, shallow relationship more obvious. Ut and her love of frogs made a fun recurring theme, particularly the scene where she and Mai go illegally at