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A review by foraging_pages
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
4.0
Shanghai Girls chronicles the journey of Pearl and her sister May from the glamour and wealth of upper-class Shanghai to the gutters of peasant life when misfortune and war upend their lives.
They go from having agency over their bodies as “beautiful-girls” who sit for paintings and earn wages to losing all agency as brides and victims of war.
This book is HEAVY at times. It shows the beginnings of war, the immigration process of the 1930s, and just a flat-out lack of humanity. Pearl and May have to begin their lives anew in a country that doesn’t want them. And over the years as World War Two ends and the Cold War begins, everyone looks at the Chinese as the enemy. It’s despair after despair.
Through it all, Pearl and May represent the powerful bond of sisterhood. Their story is equal beautiful and heartbreaking.
TW: descriptions of war (death, blood), sexual assault
They go from having agency over their bodies as “beautiful-girls” who sit for paintings and earn wages to losing all agency as brides and victims of war.
This book is HEAVY at times. It shows the beginnings of war, the immigration process of the 1930s, and just a flat-out lack of humanity. Pearl and May have to begin their lives anew in a country that doesn’t want them. And over the years as World War Two ends and the Cold War begins, everyone looks at the Chinese as the enemy. It’s despair after despair.
Through it all, Pearl and May represent the powerful bond of sisterhood. Their story is equal beautiful and heartbreaking.
TW: descriptions of war (death, blood), sexual assault