By Nola Minogue ’21
An advanced reading copy of The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling happened to fall
into my hands recently, a young adult novel telling the story of Anna, a first generation
Chinese-Australian, and the struggle she faces to hold her family together as her mother
crumbles into the shadows.
Mental illness is a topic frequented by YA realistic fiction authors. All the Bright Places,
Speak, and, rather infamously, Thirteen Reasons Why, all delve into teens’ spiral into
depression, anxiety, and PTSD. What moved me about The Surprising Power of a Good
Dumpling, a book written and based a hemisphere away, was that it zeroed in on the
impact a mother’s mental illness can have on a family. While Anna’s mother is never
given a specific diagnosis, she experiences psychotic episodes of paranoid fear of bad
men chasing after her and her family, as well as mood swings that often target her teenage daughters. Anna practically raises her siblings in her mother’s emotional absence, while helping out her father in his restaurant. The family dynamics are all original and realistic, and gave me a look into a world I knew nothing about.
If you’re looking for new YA that breaks the mold and sees mental illness through the
lenses of an entire family, this is the book for you.
