A review by wordssearched
Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book is so beautifully crafted, so poetic and evocative—not just of a particular time in America but of the tug between hope and despair when your freedom has been stolen—that the tragedies it contains feel surprising despite their inevitability. Built around an actual event in Idaho in the 1880s, this story focuses on a Chinese girl who loses her family and then gets kidnapped and brought to the United States against her will. Shifting identities to hide herself, she struggles with an alter ego, a name she was given that suggests her life was bound for tragedy but that also wills her to survive. 

The history of the American Frontier West has long sought to erase the people of Asian descent who helped build this country, along with the atrocities committed against them. Jenny Tinghui Zhang took the seed from a historical fact and created the kind of heartbreaking truth that only art can produce. Like the best "Westerns," this novel is not for the faint of heart, but worth the journey it will take you on. 
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