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A Tender Age
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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.
- GenresFictionLiterary Fiction
368 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication August 11, 2026
5 people are currently reading
5166 people want to read
About the author
Chang-rae Lee
30 books1,041 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 - 11 of 11 reviews
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 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 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.
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
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!
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.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews