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A review by celenac
Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution by Helen Zia
4.0
Last Boat Out of Shanghai was an interesting and informative read. I really enjoyed reading about the lives of different Chinese people (the son and daughter of a "Japanese puppet," an international student studying in the U.S., a refugee who fled to Taiwan, and a refugee who found her way to the U.S.) during a turbulent time in history -- during the Japanese invasion of China and the Communist Revolution. It was very interesting to learn about how each character experienced highs and lows at different points of their lives during this time period based off of their family, educational, financial, and political status.
Last Boat Out of Shanghai does a good job in showing how each character's story fits into history. The book is organized in a way that aims to tell the chronological story of each character simultaneously. The book is separated into parts, each part encapsulating a period of years. Within each part is a chapter for each character, and so throughout the book, the narrative of each character would alternate (i.e. I would go from reading about Bing, then about Ho, then about Annuo, then about Benny, then about Bing again, and so on). The parts and chapters were clearly labeled and organized, but while reading the book, I quickly lost track of the names and mixed up the characters' narratives with one another. When starting a chapter about one character, it was hard for me to recall what had happened to that character previously. I think it would be helpful to reread the book several times, each time focusing on reading just the chapters of one character, to get a cohesive picture of each character's story.
I really appreciate author Helen Zia for putting an enormous amount of work into writing this book. Her acknowledgements at the end of the book made me realize that it must have been extremely difficult to organize a compelling historical narrative from the amount of information she got from researching and interviewing. Considering that it must have been hard to pick and choose what to include and exclude in the book, I think Last Boat Out of Shanghai is well-written and overall is a worthwhile read.
Last Boat Out of Shanghai does a good job in showing how each character's story fits into history. The book is organized in a way that aims to tell the chronological story of each character simultaneously. The book is separated into parts, each part encapsulating a period of years. Within each part is a chapter for each character, and so throughout the book, the narrative of each character would alternate (i.e. I would go from reading about Bing, then about Ho, then about Annuo, then about Benny, then about Bing again, and so on). The parts and chapters were clearly labeled and organized, but while reading the book, I quickly lost track of the names and mixed up the characters' narratives with one another. When starting a chapter about one character, it was hard for me to recall what had happened to that character previously. I think it would be helpful to reread the book several times, each time focusing on reading just the chapters of one character, to get a cohesive picture of each character's story.
I really appreciate author Helen Zia for putting an enormous amount of work into writing this book. Her acknowledgements at the end of the book made me realize that it must have been extremely difficult to organize a compelling historical narrative from the amount of information she got from researching and interviewing. Considering that it must have been hard to pick and choose what to include and exclude in the book, I think Last Boat Out of Shanghai is well-written and overall is a worthwhile read.