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angelgrrl 's review for:
Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter
by Adeline Yen Mah
(I read this because it's Zach's assigned reading for the summer.)
I had a hard time deciding what to rate this book.
My initial reaction was to give it less than 3 stars because I found the writing to be generally awkward. That is my main complaint about this book, similar to "Who Fears Death?" This was written as a children's book and is told from the point of view of the author as a child, so maybe the way she thought she should convey the story to her audience just didn't work for me. However that thought just made me think of something I recently read (possibly written by Patrick Rothfuss?) about how writing a book for children doesn't excuse poor writing.
Then I read through other low reviews and got very angry about how the main complaint is that she's a rich, whiny girl who doesn't know how good she had it. Did these people read the same book as I did? The author very obviously suffered emotional and physical abuse from her stepmother and father; what does it matter that she was still able to go to school, that she wasn't starving out on the streets? These facts do not invalidate what she suffered. One of these commenters did give some context for this scorn — that strict upbringing and corporal punishment were the norm and daughters were less desired in China, so really her story could have been told by countless other girls who didn't enjoy any of the privileges that she did. And to the commenters who can't believe how she so desperately wants affection and approval from her abusers, who say this makes her pathetic and an unbelievable character, I say be *very* thankful that you don't understand.
So that bit there made me feel like I should leave a higher rating, because clearly her story resonated with me in some way. That said, I think I'll stick with my 2 stars, because while it's important for stories like this to be told and heard, I'm sure it could be (and has been) done in a way that isn't so awkward for me to read.
I had a hard time deciding what to rate this book.
My initial reaction was to give it less than 3 stars because I found the writing to be generally awkward. That is my main complaint about this book, similar to "Who Fears Death?" This was written as a children's book and is told from the point of view of the author as a child, so maybe the way she thought she should convey the story to her audience just didn't work for me. However that thought just made me think of something I recently read (possibly written by Patrick Rothfuss?) about how writing a book for children doesn't excuse poor writing.
Then I read through other low reviews and got very angry about how the main complaint is that she's a rich, whiny girl who doesn't know how good she had it. Did these people read the same book as I did? The author very obviously suffered emotional and physical abuse from her stepmother and father; what does it matter that she was still able to go to school, that she wasn't starving out on the streets? These facts do not invalidate what she suffered. One of these commenters did give some context for this scorn — that strict upbringing and corporal punishment were the norm and daughters were less desired in China, so really her story could have been told by countless other girls who didn't enjoy any of the privileges that she did. And to the commenters who can't believe how she so desperately wants affection and approval from her abusers, who say this makes her pathetic and an unbelievable character, I say be *very* thankful that you don't understand.
So that bit there made me feel like I should leave a higher rating, because clearly her story resonated with me in some way. That said, I think I'll stick with my 2 stars, because while it's important for stories like this to be told and heard, I'm sure it could be (and has been) done in a way that isn't so awkward for me to read.