A review by shirleytupperfreeman
The Cooked Seed by Anchee Min

Born in 1957 to educated parents, Anchee Min was sent to a labor camp during China's cultural revolution. Her first 20+ years in China were less than ideal,to put it mildly, and are well documented in her first memoir, The Red Azalea. This new book is an account of her life as an immigrant to the US and her development as a writer and parent. If half of what she writes is accurate, I'm in awe of her persistence and guts. She's the Tiger Mother with no English (initially) and no financial resources. At one point early in her US life, she was attending, and barely passing, college at the Art Institute in Chicago and holding down 5 part-time jobs using public transportation to get around. While the writing style is sometimes choppy and the transitions sometimes abrupt, I enjoyed this memoir of surviving and even thriving.