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anskutiti's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, and Sexism
Moderate: Abortion, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcoholism
Minor: Car accident
delbertsays's review
5.0
Little late writing my review!
This book was very moving. My sister was adopted from China in 2004. Shen Yang, you are so strong. You went through SO much, and came out the other side. I’m not going to say okay, because my goodness what a childhood you had.
I kept hoping Grandma & Grandpa would come get you back from Auntie & Uncle.
I sincerely hope that things have changed for you.
Thank you for sharing your story.
This really opened my eyes to the ‘what could have been’ for my sister. I cannot imagine the constant fear of being taken away, while also enduring all that chaos.
You had me absolutely captivated.
This book was very moving. My sister was adopted from China in 2004. Shen Yang, you are so strong. You went through SO much, and came out the other side. I’m not going to say okay, because my goodness what a childhood you had.
I kept hoping Grandma & Grandpa would come get you back from Auntie & Uncle.
I sincerely hope that things have changed for you.
Thank you for sharing your story.
This really opened my eyes to the ‘what could have been’ for my sister. I cannot imagine the constant fear of being taken away, while also enduring all that chaos.
You had me absolutely captivated.
hannas_ink_prints's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Jälleen kiinnostava ja samalla sydäntä särkevä teos Kiinan yhden lapsen politiikasta. Teosta lukiessa halusin itkeä ja nauraa. Koin iloa sekä suurta raivoa ja inhoa. Yangin perhe on joutunut kokemaan kovia, mutta silti se miten aikuiset kasvattavat lapsiaan ymmärtämättä mistä näiden käytös johtuu. Yangin oma lapsuus ei ollut häävi, sillä hylkääminen jättivät omat arpensa ja sen lisäksi että hän on syntynyt liikalapsena ja tyttönä eivät ole helpottaneet taivalta. Kirjassa on kuitenkin toiveikas sävy ja tarina on selvästi myös Yangin tapa purkaa tapahtunutta. Kirja on rehellinen kuvaus yhdenlapsen politiikan seurauksista, joita länsimaissa ei vieläkään ymmärretä.
atulyakriday's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The Heihaizi —also known as Illegal Children, Shadow Children, Ghost children, and Invisible Children among other names—are a direct and ill-fated consequence of One Child Policy implemented in China during the 1980s. The very existence of Heihaizi goes against the law. Branded guilty for being born, these children pay for the ‘crimes’ of their parents. To escape from the fines imposed by the government for giving birth to illegal children, parents often resorted to drastic measures like infanticide and abandonment of infants or less severe measures like circumventing the law by hiding such children away from prying eyes of the Family Planning Officials.
The clash between the traditional mindset where multiple children are regarded as the backbone of families rooted in an agrarian society and the Draconian measures taken by the government to curtail the exploding population growth often resulted in devastating and bleak futures for these illegal children.
Illegal children are denied hukou and deprived of basic rights like education, healthcare, and access to government posts and jobs. Of course, there are families who paid fines imposed by the government to gain a hukou for their illegal children and there are others who used their connections to legitimate the existence of the said child. However, not all families could afford such money and there are many children who lived their entire life in the shadows. The author herself and her friend nicknamed ‘Sunshine’ being the obvious examples of the above scenario. While the author has a chance at education, her friend is stripped of his right to go to school despite his bright academic performance and has no choice but to work in a factory.
‘My childhood may have been grey, but the days I spent with you two were brightly coloured.’
For me, ‘Sunshine’ is an unforgettable character. His optimism, forgiveness, and his understanding of his own circumstances broke my heart. He is the representative of the countless children whose innocence and bright futures were destroyed by the whims of an ignorant and harsh government.
More Than One Child provides a detailed account of the author’s life as an illegal child and the abuse and trauma inflected by her family. Reading about the domestic and emotional abuse the author suffered as a child made me angry, sad, and hateful. But in the ending chapters, where the author explained the background of her family and the trauma an entire generation suffered during and because of the cultural revolution(when the Red Guards are in force), I suddenly understood the reason behind their actions. Forget about the author, even I as a reader couldn’t bring myself to forgive her family. But I can understand why everything happened in the inevitable way it had.
In simple words, the author paints how violence and trauma can generate a cycle of abuse that can affect generations of family. And as she rightly said at the end ‘although the one-child-per-family era has ended, the wounds it inflicted over three decades have not healed. People lost their jobs and families were fined, women were injured and baby girls were abandoned. Time only heals surface scratches, and there are still women with their hearts full of pain.’
More Than One Child is a moving memoir of a girl’s resilience and her ability to forge through life despite her bitter circumstances. It is history—a mosaic of inked words legitimating the experiences of the illegal, a brave voice echoing the memories of the countless children otherwise lost in the labyrinth of time.
The clash between the traditional mindset where multiple children are regarded as the backbone of families rooted in an agrarian society and the Draconian measures taken by the government to curtail the exploding population growth often resulted in devastating and bleak futures for these illegal children.
Illegal children are denied hukou and deprived of basic rights like education, healthcare, and access to government posts and jobs. Of course, there are families who paid fines imposed by the government to gain a hukou for their illegal children and there are others who used their connections to legitimate the existence of the said child. However, not all families could afford such money and there are many children who lived their entire life in the shadows. The author herself and her friend nicknamed ‘Sunshine’ being the obvious examples of the above scenario. While the author has a chance at education, her friend is stripped of his right to go to school despite his bright academic performance and has no choice but to work in a factory.
‘My childhood may have been grey, but the days I spent with you two were brightly coloured.’
For me, ‘Sunshine’ is an unforgettable character. His optimism, forgiveness, and his understanding of his own circumstances broke my heart. He is the representative of the countless children whose innocence and bright futures were destroyed by the whims of an ignorant and harsh government.
More Than One Child provides a detailed account of the author’s life as an illegal child and the abuse and trauma inflected by her family. Reading about the domestic and emotional abuse the author suffered as a child made me angry, sad, and hateful. But in the ending chapters, where the author explained the background of her family and the trauma an entire generation suffered during and because of the cultural revolution(when the Red Guards are in force), I suddenly understood the reason behind their actions. Forget about the author, even I as a reader couldn’t bring myself to forgive her family. But I can understand why everything happened in the inevitable way it had.
In simple words, the author paints how violence and trauma can generate a cycle of abuse that can affect generations of family. And as she rightly said at the end ‘although the one-child-per-family era has ended, the wounds it inflicted over three decades have not healed. People lost their jobs and families were fined, women were injured and baby girls were abandoned. Time only heals surface scratches, and there are still women with their hearts full of pain.’
More Than One Child is a moving memoir of a girl’s resilience and her ability to forge through life despite her bitter circumstances. It is history—a mosaic of inked words legitimating the experiences of the illegal, a brave voice echoing the memories of the countless children otherwise lost in the labyrinth of time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Sexism
Moderate: Abandonment
books4chess's review
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
5.0
"To this day, there is a paucity of literature about excess-birth children. If this continues, when we depart this life in the natural course of things, my generation will disappear without a trace. The passage of history smoothes over people's resentment and anger. Ten, twenty, a hundred years hence, who will remember us?"
Trigger warning: domestic abuse, emotional abuse.
What an absolutely marvellous piece of literature and soul searching from a wounded past delivered through hindsight. Shen Yang dug deep to recollect her childhood away from her family, hiding as an 'extra child' during strict-enforcement of the One Child Policy. She retells her journey and that of children with similar status to herself, shedding light on an often forgotten part of history.
I truly struggled when contemplating how to begin this review. Shen dug into her history of hiding, the institutional exclusions built into society to punish children whose only crime was to be born and the reality that money could buy silence. Where some had hukou's (local registration) to override their 'illegal' status, others were not allowed the privilege of education as punishment for their parents decisions. Whilst the book isn't an overt critique on society, it allows the reader to understand society of the time and the discrimination faced by second, third and fourth babies.
Shen managed to share her own childhood woes, happiness and shift of mindset as she met other illegal children. Interestingly, each found solace in community, regardless of the lack of change at home. Each chapter was captivating and the vocabulary and selected memories were easy to devour. I also adored the photos at the end, enabling me to add context to the previous content.
The true source of my admiration for the book came from the final chapters. Shen willingly chose to present her family through a lens other than her own lived experience and really gave context to the questionably unforgivable behaviour she endured whilst growing up. Where she used the body of her memoir to present history from her lived challenging upbringing, she presented a life jacket for those who mistreated her. Unwilling participants of the Cultural Revolution, Shen allowed the readers to understand why her caretakers had become so bitter and jaded, neither justifying nor judging their person but instead recognising that they were products of their environment. She explained how history affected her family and most impressively, how this had shaped her and she was seeking to do better to change her path.
I'm a big fan of memoirs, but truthfully, Shen is one of the first authors I've read to offer a fully rounded history of herself and the current events of the time. The Cultural Revolution is so undiscussed in western literature, as is the impact of the childhood policy and I'm in awe of her strength and decision to stand up for others who share the history of a hidden childhood.
Thank you for sharing your ARC with me Yangyang, I'm grateful.
Trigger warning: domestic abuse, emotional abuse.
What an absolutely marvellous piece of literature and soul searching from a wounded past delivered through hindsight. Shen Yang dug deep to recollect her childhood away from her family, hiding as an 'extra child' during strict-enforcement of the One Child Policy. She retells her journey and that of children with similar status to herself, shedding light on an often forgotten part of history.
I truly struggled when contemplating how to begin this review. Shen dug into her history of hiding, the institutional exclusions built into society to punish children whose only crime was to be born and the reality that money could buy silence. Where some had hukou's (local registration) to override their 'illegal' status, others were not allowed the privilege of education as punishment for their parents decisions. Whilst the book isn't an overt critique on society, it allows the reader to understand society of the time and the discrimination faced by second, third and fourth babies.
Shen managed to share her own childhood woes, happiness and shift of mindset as she met other illegal children. Interestingly, each found solace in community, regardless of the lack of change at home. Each chapter was captivating and the vocabulary and selected memories were easy to devour. I also adored the photos at the end, enabling me to add context to the previous content.
The true source of my admiration for the book came from the final chapters. Shen willingly chose to present her family through a lens other than her own lived experience and really gave context to the questionably unforgivable behaviour she endured whilst growing up. Where she used the body of her memoir to present history from her lived challenging upbringing, she presented a life jacket for those who mistreated her. Unwilling participants of the Cultural Revolution, Shen allowed the readers to understand why her caretakers had become so bitter and jaded, neither justifying nor judging their person but instead recognising that they were products of their environment. She explained how history affected her family and most impressively, how this had shaped her and she was seeking to do better to change her path.
I'm a big fan of memoirs, but truthfully, Shen is one of the first authors I've read to offer a fully rounded history of herself and the current events of the time. The Cultural Revolution is so undiscussed in western literature, as is the impact of the childhood policy and I'm in awe of her strength and decision to stand up for others who share the history of a hidden childhood.
Thank you for sharing your ARC with me Yangyang, I'm grateful.
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