“Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk,” she’s told, after speaking out of turn ... Bad Bad Girl is in part a fictionalised reconstruction of Jen’s mother’s life, in service of a searching attempt to excavate their troubled relationship.
Gish Jen’s remarkable and heartbreaking latest book, “Bad Bad Girl,” may prompt a flood of feelings not felt since adolescence ... Unlike, for example, Molly Jong-Fast’s merciless “How to Lose Your Mother,” “Bad Bad Girl” doesn’t read like a hit job.