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I Want Candy

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

Fourteen-year-old Candace Ong is wasting away in wonderland—Eggroll Wonderland, the restaurant where her under-Americanized family toils in San Francisco. She loves rock candy and rock music, jelly beans and jelly shoes—and hangs with her best friend Ruby, whose wild life she envies. Candace wants more than another stifling summer stuck in the kitchen. So when a new opportunity arises, she leaps at the chance—even though it means leaving home to experience a tantalizing, dangerous life far beyond the dim sum ho hum. But the waiting world may be a lot more than one brainiac Chinese Lolita can safely handle.

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  • Reviews

    • School Library Journal

      April 1, 2008
      Adult/High School-Candace Ong, 14, finds herself interested but lacking in the sexual allure that her mean, not-so-best friend Ruby Ping flaunts, and she bemoans her lot in life as the egg roll and crab Rangoon fryer at her parents small San Francisco restaurant. But Candace has dreams and abilities of her own. Its 1983, and her fantasy life is rich with both Adam Ant and the doings of the young men just a generation ahead of her who seem to be living lives of independence and decadence. When shes not working or following Ruby to Pier 39, Candy Othe persona this potentially hot little schoolgirl is cultivatingtries some trysting on her own, with the fellow at the photocopy shop and a friend of a buddy at the record store. But ultimately, shes just a kid and a smart one at that, so she can see the dangers that all of the Afterschool Specials shes ingested through junior high have warned about. She manages to duck out at the last critical moment, unlike Ruby, whose brazenness leads to an explosion in the restaurant. Over the next few months, Candace suffers from guilt and the illusion that Ruby is still able to taunt her. Keltners characters are authentic, raw, and fully realized from Candaces immature, but increasingly insightful, perspective. This is adult urban fiction with a real adolescent protagonist living in a period and place where adolescence seems to be an interminable social condition."Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia"

      Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      January 1, 2008
      More than anything, 14-year-old Candace Ong wants not to be stuck as a waitress in a restaurant like Eggroll Wonderland; thats the one in San Franciscos Chinatown where her joyless parents work, night and day, and embarrass their daughter with their fractured English. She is also getting extremely tired of playing the role of smartbut pudgysidekick to her best friend, the beautiful and very sexy Ruby Ping. But playing a new part isnt always easy, and Candace makes some often funny, sometimes sad mistakes, most of them of a sexual, vaguely Lolitaesque nature. As she did in her first two novels, The Dim Sum of All Things (2004) and Buddha Baby (2005), Keltner explores the rigors of finding ones identity as a member of two cultures. Her introduction of magical realism into the latter part of her book is a bit disconcerting to the reader but helpful to Candace in discovering important aspects of her Chinese heritage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:990
  • Text Difficulty:5-7

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