The Balance Tips

"Ava Ling Magee, the central figure in Joy Huang Stoffers's debut novel, is a work in progress. She struggles to come to terms with a domineering mother and an absent father, with self-doubt, with being a friend and having friends, with shocks that emerge from the past. Stoffers weaves an engaging tale about searching for identity and growing toward self-knowledge and independence." -- Paul Spickard, author of Race in Mind, and Professor of History and Ethnic Studies, UC Santa Barbara (on Whasian )
"How exciting to see Joy Huang Stoffers join the ranks of writers like Sarah Jamila Stevenson and Matt de la Pena who write about the challenges of being a mixed-race teen. Anyone who has lived betwixt and between cultures and racial identities will find their stories reflected here in this honest and enriching tale." -- Heidi W Durrow, author of the New York Times bestseller The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (on Whasian )
" Whasian deftly tackles the difficult task of naming an identity that continues to be invisible; we mixed race Asian Americans have found a powerful voice in Joy Huang Stoffers, who, as she tells her story, reveals so many of ours." -- Wei Ming Dariotis, co-editor of War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art, and Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, SFSU
"Ambitious and brave, this book is a lyric meditation not just on identity, but authenticity." -- Jamie Ford, NY Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
"This is the mixed-race novel we all need in 2021." -- Jackson Bliss, author of Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments, Amnesia of June Bugs, & Dream Pop Origami