A review by marilynsaul
Lost in Translation by Nicole Mones

2.0

I had great expectations about this book. What's not to like? A young woman wanting to assimilate in a foreign country because she wants to be part of a "family" - I can relate to that. An archaeologist searching for the remains of the Peking Man? Sounds intriguing even though I know the ending. What I got instead was a privileged American girl (could not by any stretch of the imagination be called a woman because she lacked all nature of maturity), who hates her racist, Congressman father. Oh, no, wait, now she LOVES him - oh yeah, he IS still supporting her, despite her being in her 30s. Without giving anything away, we are treated to long passages of utter angst about her father, passages that I swear the author just copied and inserted every 10 pages or so. Then there's the archaeologist, who is really just an armchair archaeologist, a failure among his peers, who has terrible angst about his son who now lives with the archaeologist's estranged wife. Then there's the Chinese Upper Paleolithic scholar who has no compunction at gouging out bags and bags of lithics from ash seams in trenches or out of cave walls or ceilings - who the hell cares about provenance??? Well, at least he hasn't any angst. Then there's the sweet, mystical Peking-Man-expert, who, you got it, is in terrible angst over his wife who disappeared 22 years ago during the cultural revolution, and who, at the same time is the new love interest of the girl who wants to marry a Chinese man so she will be Chinese. Aaaarrrgh! I gave it one star over "I did not like it" because of the scarce tidbits of Chinese local customs and folklore. Overall, this book was a stunning disappointment.