Shanghai Girls is a stunning novel about two sisters who leave Shanghai to find new lives in 1930s Los Angeles. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5960325-shanghai-girls
Dreams of Joy is the continuing the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9500416-dreams-of-joy
Barbara says: Very interesting! Into the lives of Red China and surviving their journey in China's history!
Lisa See's newest novel, Dreams of Joy, is a sequel to her 2009 novel, Shanghai Girls. If you have not read Shanghai Girls and you are thinking about this novel, I recommend that you start with the earlier novel first, since Dreams of Joy literally picks up right where Shanghai Girls left off and the novel assumes you know the central characters.
ReplyDeleteJoy, a young Chinese American woman who has grown up with her mother, Pearl, and aunt, May, in LA's Chinatown has just discovered her mother and aunt's horrible secret, and in her anger, she decides to flee to China to live the communist ideal and find her father, ZG. At first Joy is in awe at the China she discovers, and she believes she has found the perfect society. Joy's mother, Pearl soon follows her daughter and tries to open her eyes to the reality of life in the New China. Will Joy see the truth before it is too late?
I really enjoyed this novel. See uses two narrators for this story--Joy and Pearl--and alternates their voices in different chapters. This technique gives the reader a full perspective of the New China, Joy's idealistic view, and Pearl's view which is clouded by her memories of the old China, before Mao's revolution. The novel also provides a satisfying end to the story of Pearl and her sister May, which I really enjoyed when I read Shanghai Girls. I enjoyed seeing how their lives come full circle when Pearl returns to Shanghai and is reunited with people from their past. But the best, and most horrific yet compelling, parts of this novel were the scenes See describes in the New China during the Great Leap Forward. This is a very real and terrible human tragedy, and See does not gloss over it.