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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Trafficking, Kidnapping
Moderate: Sexual assault, Violence, Murder
Minor: Vomit, Death of parent
“I have felt many things, given them many names. This one I do not want to name. It is as if someone has tied a large stone to my heart, tied it so tight that the veins are full and swelling, and dropped the stone in the deepest part of the ocean."
I normally do not venture as far back as the 1800s when reading historical fiction, but I’m so thankful I decided to travel along with Daiyu on her journey from China to the United States in the mid-19th century. Daiyu leads a life of contentment living with her parents and grandmother in a fishing village in China, far removed from the largest city. Daiyu was bestowed with her name after the poet Lin Daiyu, a tragic figure who, legend says, died from melancholy and a broken heart. However, our Daiyu inherits not only the name, but the spirit of Lin Daiyu, who will become an essential force that accompanies her on her tumultuous journey.
Daiyu’s life is irrevocably changed the day her parents go missing, ultimately shifting her fate forever. To protect her from also being entangled in her parent’s mysterious disappearance, her grandmother disguises her as a boy and sends her to the nearest city, hoping she can make a life for herself there. Daiyu struggles to survive, until one day a shopkeeper takes pity on her and directs her to the calligraphy school where she could find work and shelter. Her time at the calligraphy school was one of my favorite elements of the book, because she would explain the characters and the significance of each part of its design. The following passage exemplifies this so beautifully: “My name is made out of fire, of earth, of emperors. I am a precious piece of jade, a dark swath of greatness.” Jenny included the characters within the text which I appreciated, as it added the visual for which Daiyu was describing.
Although Daiyu was excelling at the calligraphy school, unfortunately her time there would be brief, as her path was about to turn again. I knew this book was going to break my heart, but I did not realize to such a degree. Daiyu would be smuggled to the United States and forced to work in a brothel. She faced such unbearable conditions on her journey overseas and upon her arrival. That was only the beginning.
During her time in the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is passed, thereby making outright discrimination and violence against people of Chinese descent legal. The passage of this legislation would ultimately be the unraveling of the life Daiyu had managed to salvage. As I kept reading, I was building hope that she would escape her life of trauma, but sadly she could not outrun the malice threatening her.
Another element I really enjoyed was the incorporation of Daiyu’s namesake, Lin Daiyu, into the story. She accompanies Daiyu on her journey, at first as a specter haunting her, but later as an ally giving her courage. I found it a very creative way to tie Daiyu to the origin of her name. Sadly, her story unfolded in an equally tragic way as Lin Daiyu.
As one of my most anticipated reads of 2022, I was not disappointed. The prose was beautifully written, poetic and lyrical. Although the book ends in tragedy, Daiyu’s story is fiction. There are likely so many true stories of Chinese people who faced such bigotry and violence in their own lives. I was shocked by a history that I knew very little of, and although I learned more of it through fiction, this is just the springboard to discovering more of the history of racism that often goes unspoken.
Overall, this is a stunning debut. Jenny has established herself as a new voice to be reckoned with. I’d highly recommend it if you enjoy 19th century historical fiction, as well as a strong female protagonist. However, I warn you that your heart will be shattered. Don’t let that deter you, though, it’s worth it.
I normally do not venture as far back as the 1800s when reading historical fiction, but I’m so thankful I decided to travel along with Daiyu on her journey from China to the United States in the mid-19th century. Daiyu leads a life of contentment living with her parents and grandmother in a fishing village in China, far removed from the largest city. Daiyu was bestowed with her name after the poet Lin Daiyu, a tragic figure who, legend says, died from melancholy and a broken heart. However, our Daiyu inherits not only the name, but the spirit of Lin Daiyu, who will become an essential force that accompanies her on her tumultuous journey.
Daiyu’s life is irrevocably changed the day her parents go missing, ultimately shifting her fate forever. To protect her from also being entangled in her parent’s mysterious disappearance, her grandmother disguises her as a boy and sends her to the nearest city, hoping she can make a life for herself there. Daiyu struggles to survive, until one day a shopkeeper takes pity on her and directs her to the calligraphy school where she could find work and shelter. Her time at the calligraphy school was one of my favorite elements of the book, because she would explain the characters and the significance of each part of its design. The following passage exemplifies this so beautifully: “My name is made out of fire, of earth, of emperors. I am a precious piece of jade, a dark swath of greatness.” Jenny included the characters within the text which I appreciated, as it added the visual for which Daiyu was describing.
Although Daiyu was excelling at the calligraphy school, unfortunately her time there would be brief, as her path was about to turn again. I knew this book was going to break my heart, but I did not realize to such a degree. Daiyu would be smuggled to the United States and forced to work in a brothel. She faced such unbearable conditions on her journey overseas and upon her arrival. That was only the beginning.
During her time in the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is passed, thereby making outright discrimination and violence against people of Chinese descent legal. The passage of this legislation would ultimately be the unraveling of the life Daiyu had managed to salvage. As I kept reading, I was building hope that she would escape her life of trauma, but sadly she could not outrun the malice threatening her.
Another element I really enjoyed was the incorporation of Daiyu’s namesake, Lin Daiyu, into the story. She accompanies Daiyu on her journey, at first as a specter haunting her, but later as an ally giving her courage. I found it a very creative way to tie Daiyu to the origin of her name. Sadly, her story unfolded in an equally tragic way as Lin Daiyu.
As one of my most anticipated reads of 2022, I was not disappointed. The prose was beautifully written, poetic and lyrical. Although the book ends in tragedy, Daiyu’s story is fiction. There are likely so many true stories of Chinese people who faced such bigotry and violence in their own lives. I was shocked by a history that I knew very little of, and although I learned more of it through fiction, this is just the springboard to discovering more of the history of racism that often goes unspoken.
Overall, this is a stunning debut. Jenny has established herself as a new voice to be reckoned with. I’d highly recommend it if you enjoy 19th century historical fiction, as well as a strong female protagonist. However, I warn you that your heart will be shattered. Don’t let that deter you, though, it’s worth it.
This book is not at all what I was expecting. It deals with pretty heavy content, but it is beautifully written.
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
What a beautiful book. Daiyu is named after a tragic literary figure and worries that she too is destined to have a tragic life.
I appreciate the author tackling the topic of mistreatment and the lynching of Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s, but the YA style writing, the thin plotline, the impossible narrative arcs, made this such a watered down read.
This is a powerful, enlightening, thoughtful, beautifully written -- and devastating story. The audio version was worth the time, with an extraordinarily talented narrator, Katharine Chin. Audio is particularly valuable when as here, the writing is exquisite. But, since I have no writing to reference, I may get some details wrong. Sometime in the late 1860s or so, Daiyu is raised in China by loving parents and her grandmother-- first in a city, where her mother designs and weaves extraordinary tapestries and then in a small town, where her grandmother can garden and they have a larger house. She is named for a tragic heroine of an old story involving a woman who is sickly and dies when her lover is tricked into marrying a healthier person. Our Daiyu is convinced that her life is preordained to be tragic as well. They live a stable and pleasant life until there is a turn of events that forces Daiyu to strike out on her own at age twelve.
A NOTE ABOUT THIS REVIEW: It does not contain spoilers, in the sense that I stuck to what people can learn from the publisher's description with some details added that are also not spoilers. I think it's safe to read on unless you don't want to learn anything about the story and the writing.
This is a novel full of twists and turns, moments of stability and periods of great danger. At times, Daiyu must disguise herself as a boy, moving in unfamiliar circles and of necessity coming to understand how men, good or evil, perceive women and the different roles of gender. It is a deeply moving coming of age story. One theme in the book comes from a period of time when Daiyu has the chance to learn to write and learn about calligraphy. The master is as much philosopher as teacher and gives Daiyu ways to understand her challenges and to accept and live her life. Zhang weaves this experience through the story, describing what characters are used to make a name, a word and what the parts that make the sum mean about a word. In every iteration of her life, Daiyu uses her finger to write characters on her thigh and thinks about the language of her birth, eventually comparing the strangeness of English and its twenty-six letters to her beloved Chinese characters.
Because Daiyu is kidnapped and shipped to California where she is sold to a brothel. The act of kidnapping, being held prisoner, being smuggled across the sea and landing in a brothel before she has yet menstruated is powerfully written so that we experience what she experiences physically. The reader is mesmerized by her external and internal processing when at times is necessarily dissociative, involves an internal muse that Daiyu can see, it is so real and involves pain, a desire not to survive, a desire to go on. Eventually, Daiyu makes her way to Idaho in yet another strange turn of events, where she ultimately settles into work at a general store owned by a pair of Chinese men, who don't ask a lot of questions of the boy they have hired for room and board and a small amount of money. It is in her time in Idaho that Daiyu becomes increasingly aware of the danger of being Chinese in the United States. For some years there have been incidents of mass violence against Chinese immigrants, who are viewed as stealing white men's jobs. By the time she gets to Idaho, the mines that attracted Chinese workers are tapped out and many have moved on. The few Chinese residents of her town experience ongoing micro-aggression and more serious harassment. The store is targeted because it competes with a white owned store.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is passed while Daiyu is in Idaho and the radically anti-Chinese white population is further emboldened. Zhang does an amazing job of educating us, while engaging us at every moment, through discussions among several Chinese characters with varying degrees of sophistication about the current climate, activists taking risks to fight for Chinese rights and the violence/harassment they learn about in the newspapers and experience in their town. Zhang draws the array of characters with complexity, humanity, villainy, dreams, naivety and cynicism. Daiyu finds strength, self-awareness, trust in at least a few people and as she matures, she is always thinking about and acting toward a way forward in the face of heartbreaking challenges.
And every single bit of this novel is believable because the research is sound and the people compelling. Daiyu's muse is a lovely addition and I won't spoil that for you but I love this inner voice and its manifestation. There was a revealing interview with Zhang at the end of the audiobook that was quite enjoyable. She did not know much of this history until her senior year of college and then learned much much more through the research for this book. The story is inspired by her father's visit to a town in Idaho where a historical marker touches on an event in its past involving some Chinese locals and a murder. Everything that happens to every character makes sense and happens for a reason. But over and over again, things that are hard to bear happen. I want everyone to read this, or even better to listen to it, but it is definitely not for those who cannot endure pain along with the beauty.
A NOTE ABOUT THIS REVIEW: It does not contain spoilers, in the sense that I stuck to what people can learn from the publisher's description with some details added that are also not spoilers. I think it's safe to read on unless you don't want to learn anything about the story and the writing.
This is a novel full of twists and turns, moments of stability and periods of great danger. At times, Daiyu must disguise herself as a boy, moving in unfamiliar circles and of necessity coming to understand how men, good or evil, perceive women and the different roles of gender. It is a deeply moving coming of age story. One theme in the book comes from a period of time when Daiyu has the chance to learn to write and learn about calligraphy. The master is as much philosopher as teacher and gives Daiyu ways to understand her challenges and to accept and live her life. Zhang weaves this experience through the story, describing what characters are used to make a name, a word and what the parts that make the sum mean about a word. In every iteration of her life, Daiyu uses her finger to write characters on her thigh and thinks about the language of her birth, eventually comparing the strangeness of English and its twenty-six letters to her beloved Chinese characters.
Because Daiyu is kidnapped and shipped to California where she is sold to a brothel. The act of kidnapping, being held prisoner, being smuggled across the sea and landing in a brothel before she has yet menstruated is powerfully written so that we experience what she experiences physically. The reader is mesmerized by her external and internal processing when at times is necessarily dissociative, involves an internal muse that Daiyu can see, it is so real and involves pain, a desire not to survive, a desire to go on. Eventually, Daiyu makes her way to Idaho in yet another strange turn of events, where she ultimately settles into work at a general store owned by a pair of Chinese men, who don't ask a lot of questions of the boy they have hired for room and board and a small amount of money. It is in her time in Idaho that Daiyu becomes increasingly aware of the danger of being Chinese in the United States. For some years there have been incidents of mass violence against Chinese immigrants, who are viewed as stealing white men's jobs. By the time she gets to Idaho, the mines that attracted Chinese workers are tapped out and many have moved on. The few Chinese residents of her town experience ongoing micro-aggression and more serious harassment. The store is targeted because it competes with a white owned store.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is passed while Daiyu is in Idaho and the radically anti-Chinese white population is further emboldened. Zhang does an amazing job of educating us, while engaging us at every moment, through discussions among several Chinese characters with varying degrees of sophistication about the current climate, activists taking risks to fight for Chinese rights and the violence/harassment they learn about in the newspapers and experience in their town. Zhang draws the array of characters with complexity, humanity, villainy, dreams, naivety and cynicism. Daiyu finds strength, self-awareness, trust in at least a few people and as she matures, she is always thinking about and acting toward a way forward in the face of heartbreaking challenges.
And every single bit of this novel is believable because the research is sound and the people compelling. Daiyu's muse is a lovely addition and I won't spoil that for you but I love this inner voice and its manifestation. There was a revealing interview with Zhang at the end of the audiobook that was quite enjoyable. She did not know much of this history until her senior year of college and then learned much much more through the research for this book. The story is inspired by her father's visit to a town in Idaho where a historical marker touches on an event in its past involving some Chinese locals and a murder. Everything that happens to every character makes sense and happens for a reason. But over and over again, things that are hard to bear happen. I want everyone to read this, or even better to listen to it, but it is definitely not for those who cannot endure pain along with the beauty.