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A Tender Age
Not yet published
Expected 11 Aug 26“Who is a greater novelist than Chang-rae Lee?”—The Los Angeles Times
"He has redefined not only what it means to be American, but the fabric of the Great American Novel itself." —Jhumpa Lahiri
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, a story of guilt, innocence, and a boy on the cusp of adolescence.
A spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics as seen through the confused eyes of a prepubescent child of immigrants, A Tender Age joins the rich tradition of the American bildungsroman. The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family.
Devastating in its emotional precision, A Tender Age captures a family and community in striking distance of the American dream, and a young person on the precipice of adult knowledge, looking at his own culpability and looking away—then thinking about it for the rest of his life.
"He has redefined not only what it means to be American, but the fabric of the Great American Novel itself." —Jhumpa Lahiri
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, a story of guilt, innocence, and a boy on the cusp of adolescence.
A spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics as seen through the confused eyes of a prepubescent child of immigrants, A Tender Age joins the rich tradition of the American bildungsroman. The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family.
Devastating in its emotional precision, A Tender Age captures a family and community in striking distance of the American dream, and a young person on the precipice of adult knowledge, looking at his own culpability and looking away—then thinking about it for the rest of his life.
368 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication August 11, 2026
About the author
Chang-rae Lee
27 books1,059 followersChang-rae Lee is a Korean-American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University. He was previously Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton and director of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
June 8, 2026
Growing up in 1970’s outside of NYC, a Korean American boy , Jeon-Gi comes of age. A different boy on the street playing ball and trying to be tough than on the good son at home . Bullying and a misled response leads to profound questions of identity, morality and experiences that he seems too young to have to endure. Questions about his choices go unanswered at times both to him and to the reader . Dark at times this is told by Jeon-Gi as an adult looking back at his 11 year old self, remembering clearly the forces around him - the peer pressure to be tough, the typical preteen angst of one’s first crush , the cultural influence reflected by the Korean immigrant experience, his family. It is his time at a summer church camp that Jeon-Gi discovers some of who he is. A moving and relevant story.
I received a copy of this from Riverhead through NetGalley.
I received a copy of this from Riverhead through NetGalley.
April 21, 2026
A Tender Age won't be for every reader, but this book knocked me out in the best way. Our protagonist, Jeon-Gi, is what appears to be a fairly successful adult looking back with sharp precision to who he was at ten years old. He describes trying to make sense of it all as futilely scratching an itch. This entire novel is the reader watching him try to scratch that itch. I wanted to look away, but simply couldn't.
Ten is such a tender age. Everything is delicate. Even more so for Jeon-Gi whose immigrant parents see him one way that is different from how he sees himself and different from how he presents to peers. He takes us through several truly pivotal moments during this year of his life where his own culpability in incidents is something he has clearly spent decades examining, with no end in sight. We get inside his brain as he contemplates what we know is American Masculinity ((but he doesn't yet), what makes adults tick, and the unintended consequences of reinventing oneself.
Chang-rae Lee has given us such an important addition to the American Bildungsroman (a coming-of-age literary genre focusing on a protagonist's psychological, moral, or social growth from youth to maturity, and my favorite genre). This is one of those books where you just KNOW ten years down the line you will still recall, with a lot of detail, certain parts of the novel. Lee can make something as innocuous as a burnt stew feel like the end of the world in the same way some of the more wild plot points/10 year old decision making do.
While I wanted to spend a bit more time with Jeon-Gi exploring his current self, that isn't what Lee is doing here. This was uncomfortable and powerful and an absolute stand out to my reading year.
Ten is such a tender age. Everything is delicate. Even more so for Jeon-Gi whose immigrant parents see him one way that is different from how he sees himself and different from how he presents to peers. He takes us through several truly pivotal moments during this year of his life where his own culpability in incidents is something he has clearly spent decades examining, with no end in sight. We get inside his brain as he contemplates what we know is American Masculinity ((but he doesn't yet), what makes adults tick, and the unintended consequences of reinventing oneself.
Chang-rae Lee has given us such an important addition to the American Bildungsroman (a coming-of-age literary genre focusing on a protagonist's psychological, moral, or social growth from youth to maturity, and my favorite genre). This is one of those books where you just KNOW ten years down the line you will still recall, with a lot of detail, certain parts of the novel. Lee can make something as innocuous as a burnt stew feel like the end of the world in the same way some of the more wild plot points/10 year old decision making do.
While I wanted to spend a bit more time with Jeon-Gi exploring his current self, that isn't what Lee is doing here. This was uncomfortable and powerful and an absolute stand out to my reading year.
March 17, 2026
this is an odd one! i really enjoyed the writing and there are certain episodes that particularly stood out to me, but the structure is perplexingly imbalanced in a way that makes the whole project feel unfinished. the concluding section in particular seems like something that ought to have been at the center of the novel, and the actual final pages are awfully quick, almost like the novel wants to get away before you’ve noticed what it’s done. there’s definitely some boy stuff here too.. describe a girl without describing her boobs etc… and don’t get me started on the point of telling!
*arc provided by netgalley!*
*arc provided by netgalley!*
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Growing up with two older brothers did not teach me about the inner lives of prepubescent boys, nor was I terribly perceptive about the opposite sex at that age. I was too busy trying to figure out my girlhood. Tentatively, I waded into Chang-rae Lee’s novel about a ten-year-old Korean-American boy and his immigrant parents in the 1970s. I trusted the author, a savvy and subtle writer of identity and exile. He did not disappoint!
It took me a good minute to appreciate the vicissitudes of Jeon-Gi’s life, but once I understood the stakes, I was fully engaged. Besides identity—(both self and ethnic within American culture), the themes include family, friendship, alienation, and the dilemmas of American masculinity. And overriding these themes was the challenge of communication, both of language skills and the willingness to share your deepest feelings.
After a nearly violent encounter with a peer at school, J.-G. enters the juvenile legal system. These were the youthful days of being bullied and also bullying. Since he rarely shared inner struggles with his parents, J.-G. chose not to explain why he threatened another student with a knife on school grounds. He was remanded to attend a program for juvenile delinquents, and the face-to-face with some antisocial criminals leads to distressing, even shocking behaviors for someone his age to witness. These turbulent times.
A Tender Age captures less than a year in J.-G.’s life, but it was a pivotal period of growth, especially during the weeks of summer overnight camp. There were boys and girls (kept in separate quarters), and more Korean American kids than in the play yard at home. His first adult hero and his first crush happen here, and he learned outdoor skills that help build his confidence. Camp life was a liminal time for J.-G.--to make independent decisions and achieve a level of self-recognition.
J.-G.’s parents were loving and aimed to guide him toward success, but they often needed their son to interpret English for them, as their language skills were limited. Lee didn’t use a hammer to clarify the immigrant experience; rather, he let it unfold organically. J.-G.’s superpower and Achilles heel was his ability to mask his true feelings. Girls are known to be practiced in masking, but certainly J.-G. had an enigmatic coping style. That was his way of navigating the troubling mixed feelings and inner confusion of his age.
The inner struggles of family often occur privately, quietly, and the novel is a blend of action and some powerful interior moments. The story is recounted by an adult Jeon-Gi, fine-tuned like a memoir would be, revealing this charged year of his life. Lee’s character ably brought the reader into his youth, balancing the perspective of an adult reckoning with potent events from childhood with the boy winging his way through the tumult of this tender age. In a lesser author, this would have been maladroit. In Lee’s hands, the strength of his writing strapped me in.
“A primary struggle of childhood is the struggle to make oneself understood, but I found a special power in being indecipherable, leaving everyone grasping and unsettled.”
The strength of this book continues to awe me, the intricate threads still tangling with each other long after the last page. Thank you to Riverhead publishers for providing me with an ARC.
It took me a good minute to appreciate the vicissitudes of Jeon-Gi’s life, but once I understood the stakes, I was fully engaged. Besides identity—(both self and ethnic within American culture), the themes include family, friendship, alienation, and the dilemmas of American masculinity. And overriding these themes was the challenge of communication, both of language skills and the willingness to share your deepest feelings.
After a nearly violent encounter with a peer at school, J.-G. enters the juvenile legal system. These were the youthful days of being bullied and also bullying. Since he rarely shared inner struggles with his parents, J.-G. chose not to explain why he threatened another student with a knife on school grounds. He was remanded to attend a program for juvenile delinquents, and the face-to-face with some antisocial criminals leads to distressing, even shocking behaviors for someone his age to witness. These turbulent times.
A Tender Age captures less than a year in J.-G.’s life, but it was a pivotal period of growth, especially during the weeks of summer overnight camp. There were boys and girls (kept in separate quarters), and more Korean American kids than in the play yard at home. His first adult hero and his first crush happen here, and he learned outdoor skills that help build his confidence. Camp life was a liminal time for J.-G.--to make independent decisions and achieve a level of self-recognition.
J.-G.’s parents were loving and aimed to guide him toward success, but they often needed their son to interpret English for them, as their language skills were limited. Lee didn’t use a hammer to clarify the immigrant experience; rather, he let it unfold organically. J.-G.’s superpower and Achilles heel was his ability to mask his true feelings. Girls are known to be practiced in masking, but certainly J.-G. had an enigmatic coping style. That was his way of navigating the troubling mixed feelings and inner confusion of his age.
The inner struggles of family often occur privately, quietly, and the novel is a blend of action and some powerful interior moments. The story is recounted by an adult Jeon-Gi, fine-tuned like a memoir would be, revealing this charged year of his life. Lee’s character ably brought the reader into his youth, balancing the perspective of an adult reckoning with potent events from childhood with the boy winging his way through the tumult of this tender age. In a lesser author, this would have been maladroit. In Lee’s hands, the strength of his writing strapped me in.
“A primary struggle of childhood is the struggle to make oneself understood, but I found a special power in being indecipherable, leaving everyone grasping and unsettled.”
The strength of this book continues to awe me, the intricate threads still tangling with each other long after the last page. Thank you to Riverhead publishers for providing me with an ARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
My gratitude to #NetGalley and to #RiverheadBooks for the opportunity to read and review this wonderful novel by #ChangRaeLee which is due for publication on 8.11.2026.
Despite hearing wonderful things about this Pulitzer Prize-nominated author, #ATenderAge was my first experience reading him and I'm looking forward to more. I requested this book based upon his acclaimed literary status and was not disappointed.
"A Tender Age" was highly readable in an intimate and personal way that had me doublechecking the NetGalley portal (about fifty pages in) to make sure it was not a memoir. It is not, but it felt like one. That is a unique experience for me and feels important to mention.
Lee's creation of his main character, a Korean-American Jeon-Gi, is remarkable. We meet him in the modern day reflecting upon a pivotal section of his childhood -- we see J - G from about age 9 through his very memorable 10th and 11th birthdays -- and some especially character-shaping experiences he has in school and in his neighborhood, among the seemingly feral local children in his neighborhood (some more impactful than others). We witness the reverence he has for his parents (especially his mother who remains the "most beautiful" woman in the world) and right before his 11th birthday he is sent to a church camp where he spends two powerful weeks. The combination of these people, places, and events move him from sheltered innocence to a forever-changed witness (and participant) in trauma (his own and a handful of people around him).
I want to avoid spoilers and recanting specific scenes but J - G moves quietly from a passive role to an "actor" in his life (in many definition of the word) and Lee does an incredible job demonstrating how -- regardless of protective parents, of hugging the sidelines, of whatever powers we employ to either move closer or further away from desired (or undesired outcomes -- life/fate has a way of pulling us, humans, into the river of events - for better and for worse.
Life shapes us and we shape one another -- the interconnection is undeniable. And for a young assimilating immigrant boy within a diverse neighborhood, certain factors arise that may not apply to others around him. In reality, how we look, speak, the foods we eat, our parents, all of these things steer the ways things evolve and I was fascinated by the character of J - G and how he relied on storytelling, like many of us do, to matter more and to fit in. How the lengths he went to impacted the lives of those around him. Human life unfolds in waves of choices and regrets, bitterness and forgiveness, serendipity and tragedy.
This coming-of-age story is a must-read, beautifully written, and it was impossible for me not to feel compassion toward the main character though some of the choices he made were terrible (they were also, for me, mostly understandable). I highly recommend "A Tender Age" and am looking forward to reading more by this talented writer.
Despite hearing wonderful things about this Pulitzer Prize-nominated author, #ATenderAge was my first experience reading him and I'm looking forward to more. I requested this book based upon his acclaimed literary status and was not disappointed.
"A Tender Age" was highly readable in an intimate and personal way that had me doublechecking the NetGalley portal (about fifty pages in) to make sure it was not a memoir. It is not, but it felt like one. That is a unique experience for me and feels important to mention.
Lee's creation of his main character, a Korean-American Jeon-Gi, is remarkable. We meet him in the modern day reflecting upon a pivotal section of his childhood -- we see J - G from about age 9 through his very memorable 10th and 11th birthdays -- and some especially character-shaping experiences he has in school and in his neighborhood, among the seemingly feral local children in his neighborhood (some more impactful than others). We witness the reverence he has for his parents (especially his mother who remains the "most beautiful" woman in the world) and right before his 11th birthday he is sent to a church camp where he spends two powerful weeks. The combination of these people, places, and events move him from sheltered innocence to a forever-changed witness (and participant) in trauma (his own and a handful of people around him).
I want to avoid spoilers and recanting specific scenes but J - G moves quietly from a passive role to an "actor" in his life (in many definition of the word) and Lee does an incredible job demonstrating how -- regardless of protective parents, of hugging the sidelines, of whatever powers we employ to either move closer or further away from desired (or undesired outcomes -- life/fate has a way of pulling us, humans, into the river of events - for better and for worse.
Life shapes us and we shape one another -- the interconnection is undeniable. And for a young assimilating immigrant boy within a diverse neighborhood, certain factors arise that may not apply to others around him. In reality, how we look, speak, the foods we eat, our parents, all of these things steer the ways things evolve and I was fascinated by the character of J - G and how he relied on storytelling, like many of us do, to matter more and to fit in. How the lengths he went to impacted the lives of those around him. Human life unfolds in waves of choices and regrets, bitterness and forgiveness, serendipity and tragedy.
This coming-of-age story is a must-read, beautifully written, and it was impossible for me not to feel compassion toward the main character though some of the choices he made were terrible (they were also, for me, mostly understandable). I highly recommend "A Tender Age" and am looking forward to reading more by this talented writer.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The unsupervised hellscape of a Gen X childhood is brutal enough on its own. A Tender Age complicates it further through the lens of immigrant family life.
Lee portrays both with a level of emotional weight that feels invasive at times, not in the sense of innocence lost, but in the dirtier reality of becoming a person before you fully understand yourself. This is a novel about the formation of shame. About the way a child begins to internalize mistreatment, misread the world around him, and slowly construct an identity out of fear, humiliation, longing and self-preservation.
Jeon-Gi is an exceptional narrator. Observant. Wounded. Earnest. Often wiser than his years in a manner that feels deliberately retrospective rather than unbelievably precocious. Through him, Lee explores masculinity not as a set of abstract rules but as something boys teach each other through dominance, peer hostility, performance and the constant pressure to understand what kind of “man” the world expects them to be. The novel is acutely attuned to the lessons humiliation imparts, the behaviors violence and status hierarchies reward, and the way children learn power and cruelty long before they have the words to articulate either. Sexuality is also rendered with remarkable honesty, not as an awakening in any romanticized sense, but as curiosity, embarrassment and misunderstanding tangled up in ways that feel true to adolescence.
What makes this novel so compelling is its refusal to reduce any of this into easy moral lessons. Jeon-Gi is neither pure victim nor villain. He is morally and self-consciously altered by the forces shaping him, but he remains a boy. Lee understands that childhood is often where we first encounter the terrifying possibility that we can be harmed by the world while also being capable of harming others. This wasn't the story of one damaged child. This was a whole ecosystem that produced boys like him.
A Tender Age digs deep into memory, degradation and the way we reinterpret our own past to make sense of who we become. It is equally interested in exposing the reality that adults have secret lives, break rules and are not always what they present themselves to be.
Thank you to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. Reading this was an actual privilege. I loved every second I spent with it. A five star BANGER. One of my favorite books of the year. One of my favorite books, period.
Lee portrays both with a level of emotional weight that feels invasive at times, not in the sense of innocence lost, but in the dirtier reality of becoming a person before you fully understand yourself. This is a novel about the formation of shame. About the way a child begins to internalize mistreatment, misread the world around him, and slowly construct an identity out of fear, humiliation, longing and self-preservation.
Jeon-Gi is an exceptional narrator. Observant. Wounded. Earnest. Often wiser than his years in a manner that feels deliberately retrospective rather than unbelievably precocious. Through him, Lee explores masculinity not as a set of abstract rules but as something boys teach each other through dominance, peer hostility, performance and the constant pressure to understand what kind of “man” the world expects them to be. The novel is acutely attuned to the lessons humiliation imparts, the behaviors violence and status hierarchies reward, and the way children learn power and cruelty long before they have the words to articulate either. Sexuality is also rendered with remarkable honesty, not as an awakening in any romanticized sense, but as curiosity, embarrassment and misunderstanding tangled up in ways that feel true to adolescence.
What makes this novel so compelling is its refusal to reduce any of this into easy moral lessons. Jeon-Gi is neither pure victim nor villain. He is morally and self-consciously altered by the forces shaping him, but he remains a boy. Lee understands that childhood is often where we first encounter the terrifying possibility that we can be harmed by the world while also being capable of harming others. This wasn't the story of one damaged child. This was a whole ecosystem that produced boys like him.
A Tender Age digs deep into memory, degradation and the way we reinterpret our own past to make sense of who we become. It is equally interested in exposing the reality that adults have secret lives, break rules and are not always what they present themselves to be.
Thank you to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. Reading this was an actual privilege. I loved every second I spent with it. A five star BANGER. One of my favorite books of the year. One of my favorite books, period.
May 4, 2026
Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley and Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House!
“To be a kid is to be bullied, no exceptions…this is the nature of certain youthful happenings, how they can become a knot in the flesh that every other occurrence must bypass in order for you to know yourself, in order for you to grow.”
A Tender Age explores the center of the Venn diagram of “the victories and defeats experienced while growing up” and “being an immigrant trying to assimilate in a strange land.” The writing is lovely (while dealing with some pretty dark situations) and the book is filled with relatable insights and observations about childhood and youthful guilt, the confusing mix of emotions as one is mercilessly hurled into puberty, and the enduring consequences of impulsive choices. It also touches on racism, sexual assault, the unspoken pains of parenthood, and the role that religion can play (for good or ill) in a person’s life.
In the book “What Hunger” by Catherine Dang, the author makes the point that an immigrant’s children can sometimes be as foreign to their first-generation parents as any other strangers in the street.
This book digs into this same concept to great effect.
“To be a kid is to be bullied, no exceptions…this is the nature of certain youthful happenings, how they can become a knot in the flesh that every other occurrence must bypass in order for you to know yourself, in order for you to grow.”
A Tender Age explores the center of the Venn diagram of “the victories and defeats experienced while growing up” and “being an immigrant trying to assimilate in a strange land.” The writing is lovely (while dealing with some pretty dark situations) and the book is filled with relatable insights and observations about childhood and youthful guilt, the confusing mix of emotions as one is mercilessly hurled into puberty, and the enduring consequences of impulsive choices. It also touches on racism, sexual assault, the unspoken pains of parenthood, and the role that religion can play (for good or ill) in a person’s life.
In the book “What Hunger” by Catherine Dang, the author makes the point that an immigrant’s children can sometimes be as foreign to their first-generation parents as any other strangers in the street.
This book digs into this same concept to great effect.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Chang-rae Lee's A Tender Age is a remarkable coming-of-age novel that follows eleven-year-old Jeon-Gi (J.G.) through a summer at a Christian camp, where he encounters friendship, longing, confusion, wonder, and the first stirrings of self-awareness. Yet to describe the book simply by its plot would miss its achievement.
At first, I moved through the novel slowly—not because it failed to engage me, but because Lee's writing is so imaginative, precise, and beautiful that I found myself rereading passages in sheer admiration. His prose demands attention and rewards it.
What surprised me most was how deeply I connected with J.G. I am nearly seventy years old, yet I found myself looking back over my own life through the same searching lens with which Lee examines his young protagonist. The novel captures the rawness of childhood without sentimentality and reminds us how profoundly our earliest experiences shape us.
When I finished the book, I cried. Not because it was sad, but because it felt so honest. A Tender Age is a deeply human novel—tender, wise, and unforgettable. My favorite of the year so far.
At first, I moved through the novel slowly—not because it failed to engage me, but because Lee's writing is so imaginative, precise, and beautiful that I found myself rereading passages in sheer admiration. His prose demands attention and rewards it.
What surprised me most was how deeply I connected with J.G. I am nearly seventy years old, yet I found myself looking back over my own life through the same searching lens with which Lee examines his young protagonist. The novel captures the rawness of childhood without sentimentality and reminds us how profoundly our earliest experiences shape us.
When I finished the book, I cried. Not because it was sad, but because it felt so honest. A Tender Age is a deeply human novel—tender, wise, and unforgettable. My favorite of the year so far.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Oh, this book. What it did to me.
Chang-Rae Lee is a wonderful writer. His language is clear and bright, his characterizations effortlessly full. In A Tender Age, he returns to themes that he's explored before; communication between children and parents who do not share a language, and grappling with different expectations of society and family. Parts of this novel impersonate the charm of a Jean Shepherd story; others have the feel of a psychological study. Always in the center is 10 year old Jeon-Gi, a chubby Korean-America kid whose name, when pronounced properly, sounds a lot like "Chunky." He's moved on to being JG, and has friends on the playground of his weedy apartment complex. But there's always the danger of making a false step, and, suddenly, he's making a number of them.
You will so feel for this kid. His happy moments of belonging, his love for his family, his impatience with himself over the half-hearted way he does things are touching and genuine. Lee is a master at the height of his powers.
Thanks to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy. All opinions are my own.
Chang-Rae Lee is a wonderful writer. His language is clear and bright, his characterizations effortlessly full. In A Tender Age, he returns to themes that he's explored before; communication between children and parents who do not share a language, and grappling with different expectations of society and family. Parts of this novel impersonate the charm of a Jean Shepherd story; others have the feel of a psychological study. Always in the center is 10 year old Jeon-Gi, a chubby Korean-America kid whose name, when pronounced properly, sounds a lot like "Chunky." He's moved on to being JG, and has friends on the playground of his weedy apartment complex. But there's always the danger of making a false step, and, suddenly, he's making a number of them.
You will so feel for this kid. His happy moments of belonging, his love for his family, his impatience with himself over the half-hearted way he does things are touching and genuine. Lee is a master at the height of his powers.
Thanks to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
This story is a punch in the gut!
The narrator J-G is the 11 year old son of Korean immigrants. On a personal note, in my first year of teaching I taught 5th grade. I loved those kids. At that age they are still children but experimenting with behaviors of older kids. They are just beginning to discover their powers of reasoning and still want to please adults. Lee has captured J-G perfectly.
The story is told by a mature J-G recollecting his memorable eleventh year. A time when unsupervised playgrounds school boys on how to handle bullying, how you might treat others, and how to protect your parents from knowing the worst about yourself.
J-G has multiple selves, some good, and some unfortunate. Here is the author’s genius. It is a tender age, formative and impressive and an age that can record and remember but not possess any real agency. And so the consequences of an impulse can in the end define a life. Sad. Undeserved. And tragic.
This story is a punch in the gut!
The narrator J-G is the 11 year old son of Korean immigrants. On a personal note, in my first year of teaching I taught 5th grade. I loved those kids. At that age they are still children but experimenting with behaviors of older kids. They are just beginning to discover their powers of reasoning and still want to please adults. Lee has captured J-G perfectly.
The story is told by a mature J-G recollecting his memorable eleventh year. A time when unsupervised playgrounds school boys on how to handle bullying, how you might treat others, and how to protect your parents from knowing the worst about yourself.
J-G has multiple selves, some good, and some unfortunate. Here is the author’s genius. It is a tender age, formative and impressive and an age that can record and remember but not possess any real agency. And so the consequences of an impulse can in the end define a life. Sad. Undeserved. And tragic.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I found A Tender Age to be a quietly powerful novel, and I really enjoyed its subtle, thoughtful writing style. Following Jeon-Gi as he navigates life between his family’s world and the one he shares with friends felt incredibly authentic, and I was especially impressed by how well his character developed over time. Each moment in his journey seemed to shape him in a way that felt natural and deeply human.
Some parts of the camping experience felt like a slow burn with a steady buildup that didn’t immediately reveal where things were headed. But that pacing ultimately paid off—the ending stayed with me long after I finished the book. I found myself thinking about Jeon-Gi and the choices he faced, and I was left with so many lingering questions that made the story feel even more impactful.
Some parts of the camping experience felt like a slow burn with a steady buildup that didn’t immediately reveal where things were headed. But that pacing ultimately paid off—the ending stayed with me long after I finished the book. I found myself thinking about Jeon-Gi and the choices he faced, and I was left with so many lingering questions that made the story feel even more impactful.
May 21, 2026
Jeon-Gi is the son of Korean immigrants in America. He reflects on the tender age of 10, when the minor waves of life suddenly feel like a tsunami. And, unfortunately for J-G, a few moments indeed create ripples to be felt the rest of his life.
I love a Bildungsroman book (a literary fiction subgenre focused on the moral/psychological growth of the main character, typically from childhood through adulthood). This was a quick catch for me. I felt every ounce of pre-teen angst. J-G flounders with the juxtaposition between internal and external perception. Is who we are determined by our feelings, thoughts, or actions? Or perhaps by the weight others give to those attributes?
Thank you, NetGalley and Riverhead books for this eARC. All opinions are my own.
This book will be published on 8/11/2026
Review of advance copy received from Author
Amazing. I was deeply moved. I appreciated how, although this book is set both in the present and mostly in the past, in the ’70s as a coming-of-age story, everything still felt very present. There are themes of universal experiences that all kids go through, alongside wild, funny, quirky episodes that I was so happy to be part of while reading.
While reading reviews, I noticed no one really discussed how well-written and developed the characters are. Even characters who only appear for a few pages are described so vividly, and I thought that added impact throughout the whole novel.
This feels like the kind of book I’ll reread a couple of times just to pick up on things I may have missed the first time. There’s so much detail in this book - it’s incredible, and honestly intimidating, how good of a writer Chang-Rae Lee is.
While reading reviews, I noticed no one really discussed how well-written and developed the characters are. Even characters who only appear for a few pages are described so vividly, and I thought that added impact throughout the whole novel.
This feels like the kind of book I’ll reread a couple of times just to pick up on things I may have missed the first time. There’s so much detail in this book - it’s incredible, and honestly intimidating, how good of a writer Chang-Rae Lee is.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
There are so many relatable themes in this book and those I couldn’t relate to directly I still found fascinating. The time period of the 70s was great and I loved the coming of age aspect of the plot. I enjoyed the main characters point of view as a child of immigrants and I was disheartened with him having to deal with racial remarks from his peers, as it’s still something that happens today. This novel made me get lost in childhood again. The chaos and terrible events that occur are relatable and shocking. This is a very realistic and raw book, not some feel good story. The writing was fantastic and the storyline is easy to follow and hard to step away from. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thanks to Netgalley and Riverhead Books for the ebook. Jeon-Gi is just a typical kid who is playing baseball at school and running around with a loose pack of kids as they try to figure out life with embarrassments and misguided bravado. When an emotionally disturbed older kid seems to have Jeon-Gi in his sights, he gets triggered and lashes out violently at another child. This one act puts a pause on Jeon-Gi’s life as he’s studied and prodded by medical professionals to try and get him back on track. When it seems that he’s turned his life around, he’s sent to summer camp and certain patterns start to repeat once again. The book feels like it’s part memoir, but told with complete recall to place and people.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A Tender Age follows an 11-year-old Korean boy growing up in America during the 1970s as he tries to find his place. Told in a first-person voice that felt so authentic I occasionally forgot I was reading fiction, the novel often reads like a memoir and left me wondering how much was drawn from the author's own life.
I loved the narration and the quality of the writing. My one criticism is that too much of the novel takes place in its final setting. I would have liked more time spent on the protagonist's struggles at school and to see some of those storylines brought to a fuller resolution. Even so, this is an excellent novel with memorable characters and a compelling voice.
Thank you to Riverhead Books for providing this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
I loved the narration and the quality of the writing. My one criticism is that too much of the novel takes place in its final setting. I would have liked more time spent on the protagonist's struggles at school and to see some of those storylines brought to a fuller resolution. Even so, this is an excellent novel with memorable characters and a compelling voice.
Thank you to Riverhead Books for providing this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I enjoyed reading Tender Age a lot! I loved each tender chapter Jeon-gi described from his childhood from 10-11, and even some later updates sprinkled in! I really loved the camp chapters in the latter half of the book. My favorite parts of the camp chapters were each character’s enjoyment of their summer there (especially his retelling of dancing by the campfire!). I honestly don’t remember what I was like when I was 11, but I enjoyed reading about Jeon-gi’s escapades in his early years! Will definitely pick up again this summer! Highly recommend!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thanks to Riverhead and NetGalley for an eARC of A Tender Age by Chang-rae Lee. I loved this coming-of-age novel, as the characters were well-written and instantly relatable. Jeon-Gi is a great protagonist, and I loved the antics he got into with the children surrounding him throughout the narrated timeline. The author perfectly captures the innocence of children in the novel and what it means to navigate the world as you slip from childhood.
April 29, 2026
Thank you NetGalley and Riverhead books for this early read. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and felt it captured the turbulent and awkward time of being a preteen well. I connected with the main character and his plight of young, silly decisions leading to consequences. It reminded me a little bit of Ocean Vuong and Douglas Stuart’s writing and storytelling. I definitely think this will be a talked about book when it is published!
June 22, 2026
I loved the complexity of the main character: it defines him and confuses him and makes him very real to the reader. The novel introduces themes of identity, change, power, and love, but it doesn’t preach. I appreciated this in-depth look at a young boy grappling with these issues. Though the ending climax was a bit unclear to me, the author successfully drew me into this world.
ARC from NetGalley
ARC from NetGalley
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Quietly powerful. To think of looking back at your life when you were 10 into 11- a wild idea executed here by Lee. It goes back and forth in an order which doesn't always make sense but it delivers a powerful punch regardless. Thx to Stefan at Penguin Random House for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
An introspective examination of adolescence, perfect for lovers of The Virgins and A Secret History. Sparse dialogue with almost stream-of-consciousness, vividly sensory prose. A feels-so-bad-it’s-good kind of story. Many thanks to NetGalley and Riverhead for the review copy!
June 7, 2026
I really loved the writing, but the structure is very strange and imbalanced. Not quite sure the point of it all, but I had a good time!
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June 29, 2026(audiobook)
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