A review by millivawilli
China Dolls by Lisa See

2.0

I was surprised at how disappointed I was by this one. I liked Snow Flower & the Secret Fan but I found the character voices in here to be woefully flat, simplistic and unlikeable. I think it was actually very similar to Snow Flower but I didn't mind it as much in that book because of the different cultural and historic setting and I kind of took it as a lost-in-translation way of story-telling. Which makes me think maybe I'm a huge bigot?? I accepted the seemingly petty arguments then because I was ignorant about the time & place but in this one, I found the characters annoying and childish for 20th century Americans. Otherwise, I enjoyed the imagery of the razzle-dazzle of showbiz and some of the relevant historic details of life for Asian Americans during WWII.