Book Review: Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Unabridged, 13 hr. 29 min.
Random House Audio
Janet Song (Narrator)
May 26, 2009
★★★★½☆

Genre: Historical fiction

Source: Downloaded audio from my local library

“In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.

As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules.

At its heart, Shanghai Girls is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends who share hopes, dreams, and a deep connection, but like sisters everywhere they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. They love each other, but each knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most. Along the way they face terrible sacrifices, make impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are–Shanghai girls.”

I have adamantly avoided novels set in Asia because I have never had that much interest in the part of the world. Not because I have any negative opinions of the people or the history of this area, but the lifestyle is outside of my typical comfort zone of the European sphere. Shanghai Girls made this transition to Asian settings painless for me because Shanghai in the 1930’s is very metropolitan, Westernized, and modernized.

This book is a family story. It is the story of two sisters (as well as various extended family members and false family members) and the things that they will go through and do for each other. I don’t have any siblings so I can’t personally connect to the sibling experience, however the author makes the sister relationship so tangible that you can connect with it. You get to see the family dynamics of new immigrants, old immigrants, and subsequently the generations born in the United States. I absolutely loved the characters that Lisa created – all of them, even the ones I didn’t like were so well written that they hang around with you for a long time after finishing the book.

My favorite aspect of this novel was the immigrant experience. I have always been fascinated with immigrant stories after hearing my own family’s immigration stories from my grandparents years ago. In this book you are exposed to the total immigrant experience from the logistics of how to get to the United States, what they endured at Angel Island (which was a substantial portion of the novel), what still hung over their heads following arrival, and what the immigrant status meant in the United States. This was the type of depth I was looking for, and thought I was going to get when reading Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan, but didn’t get. I know that the Ellis Island and Angel Island experiences were quite different but I was looking for real stories and that is what I got with Shanghai Girls. You really got the feeling of what it might have been like to have been in their shoes. I also can truthfully say that I learn A LOT from this novel.

This book has some very heavy and dark moments and is certainly not for the light at heart but I feel that it totally captured the experience of the times. I couldn’t put this one down and will definitely be reading Dreams of Joy which is a continuation of this story.

★★★★★

This is a book that I am very glad to have selected to listen to on audio book. The narration was wonderful and added so much to the reading experience. Her voice set the tone for the book and I certainly appreciated being able to hear the pronunciations of the Chinese words. The pacing of the reading was perfect.

Author Lisa See also has written the following novels: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Dreams of Joy, On Gold Mountain, and Peony in Love. You can visit See’s website for additional information about the books. Each book has some awesome features on its page for additional exploration. If you would like to preview the story before reading it, why not try out this excerpt of the book?

You can also watch this book talk with the author about Shanghai Girls where she provides some historical background and her connections with the novel.  It is quite fascinating and doesn’t give any spoilers that you don’t get out of the book blurb:

Reviews of this book by other bloggers:

• Lara’s Book Club
• Confessions of a Book Addict

 

Copyright © 2013 by The Maiden’s Court

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Book Review: Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman
ARC, Hardcover, 304 pages
Spiegel & Grau
July 26, 2011
★★★★☆

Genre: Historical Fiction

Source: Received for Review as part of the Amazon Vine Program

“Set in a small town in Massachusetts, Next to Love follows three childhood friends, Babe, Millie, and Grace, whose lives are unmoored when their men are called to duty. And yet the changes that are thrust upon them move them in directions they never dreamed possible—while their husbands and boyfriends are enduring their own transformations. In the decades that follow, the three friends lose their innocence, struggle to raise their children, and find meaning and love in unexpected places. And as they change, so does America—from a country in which people know their place in the social hierarchy to a world in which feminism, the Civil Rights movement, and technological innovations present new possibilities—and uncertainties. And yet Babe, Millie, and Grace remain bonded by their past, even as their children grow up and away and a new society rises from the ashes of the war.

Beautifully crafted and unforgettable, Next to Love depicts the enduring power of love and friendship, and illuminates a transformational moment in American history.”

This novel covers a lot of history and emotion within the short 300+ pages – I would recommend a box of tissues handy when reading it. The novel covers a period just before the men are sent off to the European theatre of World War II, follows the women’s life on the new home-front while the men are away, and then shows them all dealing with what fate had dealt them following the end of the war. The experiences of these women, Millie, Babe, and Grace, cover a pretty decent range of life experiences and outcomes from the war. We see everything from lost friends and family members, the effects of PTSD [pretty much unknown of at the time], evolution of the role of women, and the new generation of their children. The book was well rounded in its coverage of the home-front and I applaud this effort as many books sent in and around World War II either ignore the home-front or spend very little time on it. I also appreciated that the author addressed issues that African Americans and Jews faced in the military and on the home-front. I had considered the treatment of African Americans before but had not really considered the impact on those of Jewish descent – even considering that they were sometimes fighting against those who had carried out some terrible atrocities against Jews.

One of my favorite parts of this book was the section of letters sent between the women and their men overseas. It was interesting to see what types of things they would tell each other and the things that they would omit – women trying to keep the men’s spirit up and the men trying to take some of the fear away from their women.

There was however a rather big issue I had with this book and that was with the layout. It would alternate between sections focusing on each woman, Babe, Grace, and Millie, and would then break these sections up by date. That I was ok with, and had the book proceeded in continuous chronological order that would have been fine. However it became confusing when each time I would start a section about one of the other women we would go back over the same period of time that I had just read about from one of the other’s perspective. I understand the direction that the author was going – to show the same events through the different perspectives, however I found it to be more confusion than beneficial.

As a side note: While I don’t really like any of the cover versions that this book has had, I’m glad they changed it from the cover on the ARC. The envelope on the cover I’m assuming was supposed to represent a letter sent between the home-front and battlefield during the war (WWII), however the envelope had a 1938 cancel stamp date on it. The events in the book didn’t take place until the 1940’s. This anachronism really bothered me throughout the reading of the book – so very glad they changed it for publication.

Author Ellen Feldman also has written Scottsboro, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, and Lucy. You can visit Feldman’s website for additional information about the book. If you would like to preview the story before reading it, why not try out this excerpt of the book?

Reviews of this book by other bloggers:

• Diary of an Eccentric
• So Obsessed With

 

Copyright © 2013 by The Maiden’s Court

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Book Review: The Car Thief by Theodore Weesner

The Car Thief by Theodore Weesner
ARC, Kindle, 400 pages
Astor + Blue Editions
May 10, 2012
3 Stars

Genre: Fiction
Source: Received for review from Publisher

“It’s 1959. Sixteen year-old Alex Housman has just stolen his fourteenth car and frankly doesn’t know why. His divorced, working class father grinds out the night shift at the local Chevy Plant in Detroit, looking forward to the flask in his glove compartment, and the open bottles of booze in his Flint, Michigan home. Abandoned and alone, father and son struggle to express a deep love for each other, even as Alex fills his day juggling cheap thrills and a crushing depression. And then there’s Irene Shaeffer, the pretty girl in school whose admiration Alex needs like a drug in order to get by.

Broke and fighting to survive, Alex and his father face the realities of estrangement, incarceration, and even violence as their lives unfold toward the climactic episode that a New York Times reviewer called “one of the most profoundly powerful in American fiction.”

This was a very hard book for me to categorize. In trade descriptions it is touted as an undiscovered American classic. It is also definitively a coming of age novel. It also has elements of historical fiction – although it isn’t quite old enough to be firmly seated there.

While reading this novel I had flashbacks to my experience in high school reading A Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; that in and of itself was a point of contention for me. Like Catcher it took me a long time to read this book because there were not many events to carry you along the plot. It was more of a soul searching, inner turmoil experience that made for not quite compelling reading. I kept thinking that it would get more exciting, but it didn’t until the small climactic blip before it slowed back down again.

This novel cannot be described as anything without being described as a coming of age novel. The main character, Alex Housman, is a teenager who, throughout the pages, grows from a young man who steals cars for no real reason to a man who is more sure about his direction in life and begins to make sound decisions. I often found myself very frustrated with the decisions of both Alex and his father.

The reading experience for me was a little split. If hard pressed, I would say that I didn’t really enjoy the first half of the novel. This was more of his troubled period and his stay at the detention home just did not make for compelling reading. As I reached the second half of the novel my experience improved because Alex became a less static character and he stopped being so hung up on himself and began to grow. I enjoyed the setting of this novel. You could feel Detroit and Flint, Michigan ooze from the pores of the pages. Alex’s father works at the Chevrolet car manufacturing plant and you can feel how the car culture embeds itself into the community.

A solid read but I wouldn’t describe it as vastly interesting.

You can read a sample from the book below to get a feel for the style.
 

The Car Thief: Theodore Weesner: Kindle Store ASIN: B00822MZEM

 

Copyright © 2012 by The Maiden’s Court

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