As the days wear on and Leigh approaches the crucial 49th day after her mother’s death, a day when the deceased is reborn into a new life, according to Buddhist belief, the vision of the red bird becomes fainter. She also finds Dory at night, when magical incense sticks enable her to travel through time and revisit past chapters of her mother’s life.

There, under the guidance of her Chinese grandparents and a mysterious family friend called Feng, Leigh begins to search for Dory in all her favorite places in the city. When the red bird drops off a box, which contains a letter in Mandarin from Leigh’s maternal grandparents saying that they want to see her after the long family estrangement, Leigh and her father Brian fly to Taipei, Taiwan, the city where Leigh’s mother Dory was born and raised. Leigh is traumatized by these events and feels that she cannot turn to her best friend Axel because their relationship has become complicated, since she kissed him on the day her mother committed suicide. The novel opens with Leigh’s statement that her mother turned into a red bird following her suicide, after leaving a note with the crossed-out statement “I want you to remember” (7). She also co-edited the print anthology Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading and Writing YA. Pan’s continued commitment to young adult fiction is evident in her co-creation of the digital platform, which aims to publish YA short stories from writers of diverse backgrounds.

“ Dark Magic and Other Escapes in These Summer YA Novels.” The New York Times Book Review, 1 June 2018.) Critic Meg Medina applauds Pan’s interrogation of “how and why we remember events,” as well as her courage in addressing “the awful questions” of who is to blame for a parent’s suicide. The novel was widely praised in the media for its treatment of difficult emotional subjects.

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