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caresays 's review for:

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See
3.0

Not nearly as upsetting as Shanghai Girls, I think, but still pretty upsetting. I was super super super annoyed with Joy most of the novel, which made it rough going for me. She's not a sympathetic protagonist and for most of it, I was thinking what a huge idiot she was. But I suppose having been raised by parents born in Communist China, I knew more about what Joy was in for than she did.

True fact: the book mentioned that the Great Leap Forward was coming and I thought, "Oh god, she is going to die."

A similar problem to Shanghai Girls, I felt, was the lack of time structure. Suddenly three months would pass! Or just one day! Everything felt weirdly disjointed and the transitions were awkward. I just wasn't as into this book as I was Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. But honestly, Lisa See, be better about skipping time.