"Listen, Slowly" by Thanhha Lai

There is a saying in acting -- "find the love, find the humor, find the obstacles".  They also say that good actors need to make the stakes big enough to register, regardless of the subject matter.  Think of it as anti-Seinfeld.  The problem with this book is that the stakes just weren't big enough, the obstacles too small, the humor unfunny and the love -- well, one kind of love (familial) was touching, but the boy crush thing was just irritating.  If you are Sharon Creech, you can get away with a story where not much happens (The Wanderer) but that wasn't the case here, IMHO.  The summary:  Mai (goes by Mia) wants to spend the summer on the beach in Laguna, CA with her best friend, crushing on a boy with her boyfriend-stealing-too-skimpy-bikini best friend.  Instead, her parents send her off to Vietnam with Grandma, trying to find out the end of her Grandfather's story from the Vietnam War.  Mai spends 2/3 of the book whining about the situation, then has a fairly predictable epiphany or two, and, without much of a climax, everything is neatly tied up in a bow.  I could have maybe sort-of put up with that if not for other glaring issues.  The descriptions of Vietnam, the culture, the village life ... is all so specific I feel like I learned a lot.  It was kind of like reading a travelogue with a CW TV teen show subtext.  But it just didn't engage me.  The narrative was pretty bland, with very occasional lyric sections.  I haven't read "Inside Out and Back Again" but have to believe Ms. Lai might be better at poetry than prose?  There was also the age issue, which I could have dismissed, but it kept being repeated, over and over and over again.  Mai is supposedly 12 going on 13, and supposedly 6th grade going on 7th grade.  The age and the grades don't match.  Twelve going on 13 is 7th to 8th, and Mai's behavior throughout is not that of a rising 7th grader.  There is this whole thing about getting the girls in the village to turn their panties into G-strings.  It's a spoiler to mention it, but frankly, the entire section was so pointless to the plot that it doesn't matter.  It was, however, one of many parts of the book that rankled -- it just didn't "fit" the character, IMHO.  It was part of an overarching feeling that the author was TRYING TO MAKE A POINT.  Much of the book felt like an adult immigrant looking at her Americanized kid and trying to (unsuccessfully) write from their point of view.  The parents were beyond stereotypical -- mom is a big-deal lawyer and dad is a Doctors Without Borders type.  The whole thing, ironically, didn't feel authentic.  The ~~setting~~ was authentic, but the characters felt like they were being driven by moralistic efforts of the writer rather than being real people.  The one character I loved, and the one with a real story to tell, is Ba (Grandma).  Perhaps, if the tale had been told from her perspective, it would have made more of an impact on me.  As with all things, this is my opinion.  I read the book because several colleagues really enjoyed it -- different strokes when it comes to literature, yes?