Leaving behind his marriage and job in New York, Jonas, the son of Ethiopian immigrants, sets out to retrace his mother and father's trip and weave together a family history that will take him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents' youth to his life in the America of today.

Nira wants to become a musician, but her Guyanese parents want her to focus on becoming a scientist or doctor, a situation that causes her trouble just as she tries to navigate relationships with friends, enemies, and a crush.

"Young is an American Born Chinese (ABC) growing up in Queens and has been told by his beloved Su Su (uncle) that one has only seven great loves in a lifetime. Young's childhood is marked by an obsessive love of comics, music, and movies... as well as a parade of school-yard crushes, tantalizing pen-pal exchanges, and a lasting infatuation with Winona Ryder. But, at the end of 1995, when Young is a sophomore at NYU, he meets Erena--brilliant, charismatic,...