A review by caleykat
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

3.0

I was really liking Shanghai Girls, until the end. It is certainly engaging judging by the way I kept picking it up first from the group of current reads. But I didn't love it. And this is more a result of what it isn't and what I've read before than any glaring weakness on the part of the novel itself. If I had read SG before Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, I think my reaction would have been different. With SFSF, the story was so strong, the characters so incredibly vivid, the setting so concrete, that I think it is impossible for SG to measure up to a standard it doesn't even know it's up against. The other factor that might be limiting my response is its similarity to The Joy Luck Club and other Amy Tan novels. Exploring the complex and layered lives and relationships of Chinese women in the context of China and the United States is arguably Tan's forte and I think she does it really well. If I wasn't constantly reminded of Tan's novels, I suspect that my enjoyment of SG would have been greater.

I think that Shanghai Girls is well written with characters you want to learn more about. It just has the misfortune to suffer in comparison to both the author's own work and similarly-themed novels by another author. If, based on its own merits, I had a criticism to offer, it would be a race to resolution that fails to satisfy.