# Bad Bad Girl

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/gish-jen/bad-bad-girl/9781803513256

JSON version (same data): https://www.bookquiver.com/gish-jen/bad-bad-girl/9781803513256.json

![Bad Bad Girl](https://quivercdn.com/covers/granta/gish-jen/bad-bad-girl_978-18-0351-325-6-1791e82c.webp?v=2026-10-17%2011%3A47%3A21)

- Book: [Bad Bad Girl](https://www.bookquiver.com/gish-jen/bad-bad-girl) ([Bad Bad Girl.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/gish-jen/bad-bad-girl.md))
- Authors: [Gish Jen](https://www.bookquiver.com/gish-jen)
- Publisher: granta
- ISBN: 978-18-0351-325-6
- Pages: 352
- Published: 2026-07-02
- Language: en_US
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

My mother had died, but still I heard her voice... Growing up in an affluent neighbourhood in 1930s Shanghai, Loo Shu-hsin is told that it is 'no good for a girl to be smart' - and yet when rumours of the revolution reach their enclave, she is the one sent abroad for an education. In New York, she meets Chao-Pei, a Chinese engineering student, and they set out to make a life together. By the time their daughter - Gish Jen - is born, her parents have only sporadic contact with their families, who are locked in repressive Maoist China. And in her struggle to discipline her American daughter, Loo Shu-hsin finds herself repeating the punishing refrains - 'Bad bad girl! You don't know how to talk!' - that punctured her own childhood. Bad Bad Girl is a compelling exploration of a mother's life in exile from one of America's finest stylists.