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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
This book started out slow for me but quickly turned into one I couldn't push pause on (the audiobook version is great!). I liked it even more than the first one.
Love Lisa See's writing... another great book. This one is a sequel so you need to be sure to read Shanghai Girls first
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Great book! I sat down on the airplane in Houston bound for Hawaii and when I looked up, I had finished the book and was 20 minutes from landing. I couldn't put it down. It has to be the best/most heart rendering description of the Great Leap Forward I've ever read. This is why I'm such a fan of historical fiction: when you attach emotion to facts, you'll remember the facts forever and now I feel like I'll never forget the terrible details of this time for China. I read the acknowledgments in the back and her book appears to be very well researched - Lisa See even traveled around China with Amy Tan and lifted scenes from historical photographs from the famine and put them right into her book. While the plot line is hard to believe at times (too many convenient "oh there you are! how weird to run into you on the street in a country full of billions of people" moments) the history behind it makes it an excellent book.
So much more than an Intergenerational story about mothers and daughters, this book is a compelling narrative about moving from political idealism to stark reality in Maoist China. Very powerful and emotionally difficult to read, but so, so good.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I liked this one better than Shanghai Girls. Would have been a really interesting addition to a particularly terrible Modern China class I took during undergrad.
Ugh... Joy is a Nightmare
SPOILERS
Joy is the worst. What a total pain in the ass.
I'm a fan of Lisa See and have enjoyed many of her other books. This one was lazy.
Joy, the hemorrhoid that she is, suddenly becomes a giant know it all (she wasn't portrayed this way in the previous book), and for not a good enough reason, scurries off to China. The same day she gets there, she conveniently runs into her biological father, who happens to be super accepting of a 20-year-old daughter just showing up out of nowhere. He's like sure, I'm in the middle of all this tense shit with the government, but why not come along to the country, my daughter from America, who isn't supposed to be here, and whom I knew nothing about.
Cue Joy falling in love with Tao, the mediocre peasant artist, who is so wonderful and who suddenly turns evil after the wedding. She continues to buy into all of the communist propaganda and turns a blind eye to people's heartache and suffering. Joy continues to listen to nothing anyone has been telling her. She's a total moron. She's cool with communism bc she's living it up with her dad bc he gets all sorts of perks.
Joy, running off to communist China, prompts her mother, Pearl, to chase after her. Forcing her to return to the country, she fled after a whole bunch of trauma when on there. So, like, hey Joy, you little jerk, making your mother chase after you and return to the country where she was violently gang raped and needed to escape- makes you a jerkface. UGH I really hate Joy. I would have just let her go live and suffer in China.
Joys actions upturn everyone's lives, and she continues to question people who are routinely trying to help her. Up to the very end.
It is one major convenient plot line after another. Even conveniently running into Pearl's father in the end...UGH! It's just awful. How this book has higher ratings than Shanghai Girls, I will never understand.
SPOILERS
Joy is the worst. What a total pain in the ass.
I'm a fan of Lisa See and have enjoyed many of her other books. This one was lazy.
Joy, the hemorrhoid that she is, suddenly becomes a giant know it all (she wasn't portrayed this way in the previous book), and for not a good enough reason, scurries off to China. The same day she gets there, she conveniently runs into her biological father, who happens to be super accepting of a 20-year-old daughter just showing up out of nowhere. He's like sure, I'm in the middle of all this tense shit with the government, but why not come along to the country, my daughter from America, who isn't supposed to be here, and whom I knew nothing about.
Cue Joy falling in love with Tao, the mediocre peasant artist, who is so wonderful and who suddenly turns evil after the wedding. She continues to buy into all of the communist propaganda and turns a blind eye to people's heartache and suffering. Joy continues to listen to nothing anyone has been telling her. She's a total moron. She's cool with communism bc she's living it up with her dad bc he gets all sorts of perks.
Joy, running off to communist China, prompts her mother, Pearl, to chase after her. Forcing her to return to the country, she fled after a whole bunch of trauma when on there. So, like, hey Joy, you little jerk, making your mother chase after you and return to the country where she was violently gang raped and needed to escape- makes you a jerkface. UGH I really hate Joy. I would have just let her go live and suffer in China.
Joys actions upturn everyone's lives, and she continues to question people who are routinely trying to help her. Up to the very end.
It is one major convenient plot line after another. Even conveniently running into Pearl's father in the end...UGH! It's just awful. How this book has higher ratings than Shanghai Girls, I will never understand.