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rasmuspori 's review for:
Dreams of Joy
by Lisa See
Shanghai Girls was one of my favorite novels, so I was really excited to discover a sequel.
Dreams of Joy tells the story of Joy, a girl from LA, whose on a mission to find her real father from the recently established Communist China. During her quest she discovers the horrific conditions and consequences of the Great Leap Forward. Her mother, protagonist of Shanghai Girls, Pearl Chin follows her daughter on a quest to save her daughter from the hands of the communist regime.
Lisa See really knows how to capture emotions and surprise the reader. Characters are extremely relatable, regardless which gender they are, and express real feeling emotions through fictional events. Settings are really well described, you can easily picture these places in your head and put yourself in there. Only a handful of novels have achieved this for me. (The others we're Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, damn Lisa See is a good writer :l)
Overall, Dreams of Joy was a great read and I'd recommend anyone even remotely interested in 20th century Chinese history. Being a sequel, you should probably read Shanghai Girls before this. You don't really get too much out of this novel without knowing context to certain events described in this novel. (If you want to know more about Shanghai Girls, you can go and read my in-depth review about it on my GoodReads profile)
Dreams of Joy tells the story of Joy, a girl from LA, whose on a mission to find her real father from the recently established Communist China. During her quest she discovers the horrific conditions and consequences of the Great Leap Forward. Her mother, protagonist of Shanghai Girls, Pearl Chin follows her daughter on a quest to save her daughter from the hands of the communist regime.
Lisa See really knows how to capture emotions and surprise the reader. Characters are extremely relatable, regardless which gender they are, and express real feeling emotions through fictional events. Settings are really well described, you can easily picture these places in your head and put yourself in there. Only a handful of novels have achieved this for me. (The others we're Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, damn Lisa See is a good writer :l)
Overall, Dreams of Joy was a great read and I'd recommend anyone even remotely interested in 20th century Chinese history. Being a sequel, you should probably read Shanghai Girls before this. You don't really get too much out of this novel without knowing context to certain events described in this novel. (If you want to know more about Shanghai Girls, you can go and read my in-depth review about it on my GoodReads profile)