Despite distracting exposition, this generation-spanning novel brings Chinese life and global history alive.
Mei’s debut novel charts the aspirations of a Chinese family against the backdrop of wars and political shifts.
Tita Pasang, known in life as socialite Ahn Na in 1940s Shanghai, comes back as a fairy to help Trixi, the Kuo family’s “last hope.” The action switches from 2015 Germany to Shanghai, Pudong District, 1938, when the goals of Kuo Mingxun, Ahn Na’s brother, inspire his wife, Chun-xiang, to administer herbs to their 8-year-old son, Edwin, to help him be a better student. The potion works. Edwin wakes and is ready to take on his father’s wish to “know more than just the longtang, more than just China.” By finding work aboard supply and cargo vessels, Edwin travels as far west as France but mostly docks at ports along the eastern Pacific Ocean. He sees the effects of World War II and the bombing of Nagasaki. After a short imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution, he makes a life aboard a domestic Chinese cargo ship he captains. He raises his young sons, First Brother and Little Two, onboard while continuing to hope he will be reunited with his wife, Ling-hua. The narrative focuses briefly on the individual lives of Ahn Na, Little Two, and Trixi. Eventually, Edwin regains what he thought was lost by leaving what he most cherishes. The real tension of the novel begins when Edwin goes to sleep, a well-executed plot shift, with the action toggling between his mother’s mind and his dreams. His perceptions and emotions are the beating heart of the novel: “large butterflies of blood are dried around Auntie Cloud’s head and arms.” The framing exposition is entertaining but static, and key dramatic events are often told rather than shown. The sections devoted to Ahn Na, Little Two, and Trixi are as vividly written as much of the novel; however, these sections seem thin after the fullness and jewellike quality of Edwin’s complete and multifaceted tale.
Despite distracting exposition, this generation-spanning novel brings Chinese life and global history alive.Pub Date: July 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5348-2130-9
Page Count: 360
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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