Good Enough

Patti is a Korean-American teenager whose parents expect her to end up at an Ivy League university. Her family's unwritten rules for keeping them happy come down to three things: score perfectly on the SAT, get into Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, and stay away from boys, who are a distraction. Patti is already an accomplished violinist, but at home, finishing as assistant concertmaster at the All-State competition and scoring under 2300 on the SAT still counts as falling short.

Her world starts to widen when she falls for a funny, gifted trumpet player who could pass for the lead singer of her favorite band. Her love of the violin and of loud rock concerts pulls her in other directions, and she begins to wonder whether the Ivy League path is really hers.

The story unfolds through the witty, painfully familiar lists Patti writes about pleasing her parents, and through the rules she starts breaking. It is a funny, heartfelt look at an ambitious teenager caught between the pressure to be a perfect daughter and her own wants. At its core is the question of whether Patti, a concert-level violinist and valedictorian contender, can decide what counts as enough for herself.