Scan barcode
book_concierge's review against another edition
2.0
I thought the author was trying too hard to un-demonize Madame Mao. Just not her best effort.
sarabz's review against another edition
4.0
This is a beautifully written book, the style is very poetic. The story pulls you into the build-up to and the events of the communist revolution in China as experienced by Madame Mao, most infamously known as a member of the Gang of Four. While it is historial fiction, I felt that it was written in such a way that the history and the fiction were fairly easy to distinguish. I think it does what historical fiction does at its best: describes an era in a way in which facts alone cannot.
ridgewaygirl's review
4.0
Anchee Min is an author to watch. She grew up in China's Cultural Revolution and wrote an astonishing memoir. She followed that with a novel, Katherine, about an American teaching English in China. So I was quick to pick up a copy of Becoming Madame Mao, but slow to read it. Generally, I prefer my historical novels to concern ordinary people.
Becoming Madame Mao tells the story of Jiang Chiang, Mao's wife and leader of the infamous "Group of Four", but not in the form of a straightforward historical account. Min moves back and forth from the first person to a very close third person and restricts herself to following Madame Mao. She's an interesting, but difficult woman to follow, constantly concerned with positioning herself and with getting the attention she feels she deserves.
The writing style worked perfectly with Min's subject. Told from the first person only, the book would have been too claustrophobic to read, in the third person, I would have missed out on who she was. An actress, Madame Mao was adept at projecting the face she wanted to towards the world. This book is a fascinating picture of a time, place and person I knew very little about.
Becoming Madame Mao tells the story of Jiang Chiang, Mao's wife and leader of the infamous "Group of Four", but not in the form of a straightforward historical account. Min moves back and forth from the first person to a very close third person and restricts herself to following Madame Mao. She's an interesting, but difficult woman to follow, constantly concerned with positioning herself and with getting the attention she feels she deserves.
The writing style worked perfectly with Min's subject. Told from the first person only, the book would have been too claustrophobic to read, in the third person, I would have missed out on who she was. An actress, Madame Mao was adept at projecting the face she wanted to towards the world. This book is a fascinating picture of a time, place and person I knew very little about.
iddylu's review
2.0
There's some really good writing in this (the last paragraph in particular hit me), but overall, something about it didn't quite land. The formatting of the first person/third person switches didn't do it any favors.
spinstah's review
3.0
It took me a little while to get into this, but ultimately I enjoyed it. It was an interesting, fictionalized, look at a piece of history that I know nothing about. Madame Mao herself gets swept up in the role she feels she must play, and ultimately causes her own downfall. This makes me want to learn more about the time period, so if anyone has suggestions for something that's not too dry, I'd love to hear them.
verabaetas's review against another edition
4.0
Não tão mau como eu esperava. O fato de falar sobre o comunismo na China (algo que estudei na escola e conheço alguma coisa) ajudou a entrar na escola e a entrar no livro. Infelizmente, uns parágrafos são escritos na primeira pessoa é outros na terceira. Não devem ensinar regras literárias na China.
margaret21's review
2.0
I wanted to score this review higher than I have done, but two stars covers it. I ended my reading by feeling I wanted to discover more about the infamous period of Chinese history that Chairman Mao and his wife came to dominate, which is positive. However, I found the writing disjointed and dry and it was hard to overcome my dislike of the character of Madame Mao herself, even accepting her tough start in life as the unwanted daughter of a concubine. I became very confused by the long list of characters, many of whom only qualified as a 'bit-part'. I was glad to turn the last page.
monarcadelibros's review
1.0
I could not find anything about the story I cared about and the writing style was too different for me to even finish the book. I read half and gave up.
camscornerbooks's review
3.0
Written in an interesting way convincing first and third person POV from know history to personal experience this book was ok at what it tried to do but not great.
I don’t know nearly enough about China or Mao Tse-tung or Jiang Ching or any of the history here to comment on whether it was factual or well written as historical fiction. But judged as a boo assuming it to be mostly fiction it was fine. Nothing special and certainly not Anchee Min’s best work or anything close to it.
I don’t know nearly enough about China or Mao Tse-tung or Jiang Ching or any of the history here to comment on whether it was factual or well written as historical fiction. But judged as a boo assuming it to be mostly fiction it was fine. Nothing special and certainly not Anchee Min’s best work or anything close to it.