The original daughter A novel

At eight, Genevieve Yang is barely figuring out the contours of her life in Singapore. Unbeknownst to her parents and grandmother, Gen's grandfather had another family in Malaysia. With his passing, his youngest granddaughter, Arin, is sent to Singapore to integrate into Genevieve's family. Understandably suffocated by a sense of abandonment, Arin slowly makes it through and reveres Gen, whose mistakes she learns to avoid. Gen is an early bloomer, but soon reaches the limits of her abilities. Arin powers on, learning ways of garnering attention that Gen never did. Not surprisingly, the green-eyed monster rears its ugly head. Consciously or not, Gen finds ways to keep her sister in place, showing a streak of malice that sharpens its hold as Gen's insecurity over her sister's mounting successes as a rising YouTube star grows. Two can play the manipulation game, however, and a big pivot centers on how Arin juices her sister's story for her own gain. Wei delivers an expertly paced and moving debut, a tragedy without over-the-top drama. Her precise descriptions--a character "pickles in disgrace"--keeps the focus on the taut action. Best of all, she paints holistic people who may be petty and selfish and yet display grace and kindness.

In Singapore in 2015, Genevieve Yang Si Qi's terminally ill mother has one last request--to see her two daughters together again. Genevieve--who narrates the story--refuses to reach out to her estranged sister, Arin Yang Yan Mei, feeling that to honor her mother's request would be to betray herself. With deep and often poetic insight, the novel goes on to chart the sisters' relationship over the past 20 years. Unlike many siblings, Arin arrives fully formed when Genevieve is 8 and she's just a bit younger; it turns out that Genevieve's grandfather, who disappeared years ago and has only just died, had a whole secret family and Arin was his granddaughter. The girls are close as children, with Genevieve playing the protective, comforting older sister as Arin struggles to find a place for herself in the family and the world at large. As their talents and interests diverge, however, the two girls gradually and then more quickly grow apart. As much as Genevieve loves Arin, she begins to wonder if her increasing distance is what fuels her sister's success as an actor--if her absence from her sister's life "unclipped her wings" and finally allowed her to thrive. As Genevieve watches the film that promises to be Arin's breakout role, however, she discovers a betrayal that threatens to undermine the women's relationship forever. Wei's novel glistens with often profound insights about the complicated relationship between a person's identity and the dynamic forces of family and friendship, with Genevieve remarking at one point: "How vast the legion of unrealized, contradictory, impractical ghosts crammed within each mortal body was." The first half of the novel is much stronger than the second, in which the plot machinations can feel somewhat forced. Though Genevieve is someone for whom violence "bloomed like desire," her motives sometimes come across as thinly disguised plot devices more than organic outgrowths of a fully fleshed-out character. A moving debut novel about sisterhood, ambition, and the quest to become one's true self. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.