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Shanghi Girls 2010-07-26

Reviewer: P. A. Nelson

The book was well written and very engrossing. The matter of fact ways the author describes the conditions of the land and its people really makes the reader stop and think about how bad things really were.

Great story that just ends... 2010-07-26

Reviewer: Helen

I really enjoyed this book, but was very disappointed in the ending. It just ends! It could have easily gone on for another hundred or two pages and I would have been happy. I really wanted to keep reading!

"An educated woman is a worthless woman." Confucious 2010-07-25

Reviewer: BrianB

As the quote above suggests, this novel reflects the culture and traditions of Chinese immigrants. Not all of their beliefs are politically correct.

In 1937 Shanghai was the most famous city in China, a spectacular and sordid collection of three million people, a city with a reputation for decadence and the pursuit of pleasure, side by side with abject poverty. It was also a great international city, dotted with skyscrapers and art deco buildings, with large numbers of people from all over the world, including Russian refugees from communist persecution, and European Jews fleeing the Nazis. This all came to an abrupt end with the Japanese invasion of China.

This is the story of two sisters, wealthy and privileged by Chinese standards, who enjoy a privileged life in Shanghai until they are sold into marriage by their father, who has to pay large gambling debts. They suffer through the brutality of the Japanese invasion, and make a daring escape to the U.S, where they experience the mixed blessings of life in Los Angeles'Chinatown. There they become a reluctant part of an assembled family, each with their own secrets and long held resentments. Their destinies are tied to their personalities, their actions, and their limitations, even though they are caught up in events that are much larger than themselves.

Lisa See uses action and spare, tight prose to give the reader a realistic and immediate portrait of her character's lives. You get to know the two sisters quickly. I was hooked by the end of the first chapter, and I knew that I was in the hands of a great storyteller. The harrowing escape from Shanghai, the internment on Angel Island, and the continual worries during the ant communist scares of the 1950's revealed a part of the American immigrant experience that I had not encountered before. Although I had read about these events in the dispassionate prose of my history textbooks, this story brought the history home to my heart. It was so much more immediate and realistic, a much better way to learn history.

The author explains her sources in the afterward, both written and oral. Ms. See has given us a find adventure novel, band also a vivid portrait of the history of Chinese Americans during the mid 20th century. I recommend this novel to all those who appreciate good historical fiction. Note: there are some graphic descriptions of violence (including rape) in the book, which reflects historical fact.

Melodramatic chick lit. 2010-07-23

Reviewer: PeeWee 278

It used every melodramatic cliche in the book: beautiful girls, gang rape, flight from dangerous thugs, persecution by authority, misfortune and poverty, treachery, and suicide. There was not a drop of humor in the story, although all real lives have some light effects in them. I found this book tortured and tedious. I also didn't care enough for any of the characters. They all felt made up, as if they each needed to represent a type. The men were particularly wispy. The main character, Pearl, felt like a patchwork quilt of people and their experiences. Many of her actions or thoughts seemed contradictory, perhaps because too many bits were stitched into one "dragon" lady.

I like the environment of vintage L.A. that See sets up, although it's too thinly drawn. And the trials in how immigrants faked their ways into this country was new to me - interesting. But the unbelievable mechanics of the plot and interactions of the characters grind on and on, shoving aside the rest.

If this were a good tearjerker, I wouldn't be so hard on it. But not one death or misfortune was told well enough to suck me in and wring out a tear. After each predictable blow of life's hammer in this over-long story, I rolled my eyes. SPOILER: Of course she would get pregnant by Sam. Of course it would be a boy. Of course it would be born dead. Of course she'd never be able to bear another child. And why does Pearl never consider that Joy is the painter's daughter. She saw her sister naked with the man. Denial? Come on. And the suicide pissed me off, it being the cheapest trick of all. I didn't believe it.

There is no poetry in the language, no richness of description, and the epiphany toward the end is just like Dorothy's in the Wizard of Oz: "There's no place like [my new] home."

Nothing new here.

And yes, the word "palpable" is in there as it is in every mediocre novel written. (That word and "preternatural" are verbal pet peeves.)

Shanghai Girls 2010-07-22

Reviewer: JJ

Very happy with my book. In the mail box with in several days of my order. Plus the story is an A+.