[3] She worked in the youth service in the UK and wrote extensively in this field, undertaking research, training and consultancy for central government departments, local authorities, voluntary organisations, charities, universities and public bodies.
[6] The story is told in the voice of the book's Chinese-Jamaican main protagonist, Pao,[7] and as described by Stevie Davies in The Guardian, "Kerry Young's heartfelt, sparky and affecting debut novel is a chronicle of multicultural Jamaica, both in its cultural richness and in its strife and tensions.
"[8] For James Urquhart in The Independent, "Kerry Young's energetic debut novel is a pacy but absorbing saga of domestic struggle and gangland manoeuvring set against the violent backdrop of postwar Jamaican politics.
"[1] Young's next two novels were also, like Pao, set in mid-20th-century Jamaica "against a backdrop of social change and political upheaval, telling three people's interlinked stories of struggle and redemption, love and ambition, race, class, gender and colour in a country at a crossroads.
And she celebrates the underappreciated impact of Chinese culture on the modern Caribbean, making a powerful case for a new understanding of Jamaican urban life.
[20][18] Young has been listed as one of "11 Notable Jamaican Writers You Should Know", alongside Claude McKay, Roger Mais, Andrew Salkey, Sylvia Wynter, Lorna Goodison, Lindsay Barrett, Margaret Cezair-Thompson, Colin Channer, Kei Miller, and Marlon James.