You were a kid once too.....

Adorable Chinese Kid The writing in this novel is, I would say, rather ingenious. But not in the sense of great imagery and flowery language because it by no means is written in good English, but that is the beauty of it. The main character Z has only a limited knowledge of the English language and the fact that we can experience her experiences through her misunderstandings and struggles to understand clearly put us in the exact mindset of Z. This is very different than being told by some outside observe (even if it is the same character reflecting on past events) because it is more real and makes the story more valid in our minds, as well as more gripping.
On top of that, this lack of understanding of necessary concepts brings us back to our early, early years of life. Not many of us can really remember that (I’m not even sure I do) but think back, way back when your English vocabulary was quite small. What I remember is not exactly that there were things that I wasn’t understanding, everything going through my head made perfect sense, no matter what those outside people said, this is what I understand. That is kind of what Z is experiencing. Not to say that Chinese understanding is like that of a child, but her culture is severely different than that of the English and when things occur to her she will process it in her understanding and come up with an appropriate responding action, or at least, what she thinks is appropriate.