|
Loading... Shanghai Girls: A Novelby Lisa See
LibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. http://www.amazon.com/Shanghai-Girls-...  MsPibel | Nov 6, 2009 |  Lisa See weaves her magic again. A beautiful story told with exquisite craft by an author I hope to be reading for years to come. (  ) katet | Nov 4, 2009 | Shanghai Girls is a work of historical fiction for young adult and adult readers. Based in Shanghai, China and Los Angeles, United States, the book tells the story of two sisters and their lavish life in the “Paris of the East” and the events that unravel the world that they have always known. Student readers will be exposed to the authority of family traditions and the customs that force individual behaviors. After being forced to travel to America for a new life, the sisters encounter the harsh realities of the “land of promise.” What they learn is that their new life offers no promises for women like them, but instead the discrimination Chinese-Americans encountered would be cruel and dehabilitating. The choices of each sister to honor Chinese tradition or to relinquish those traditions which were so guarded and protected by being Chinese, will result in very different paths for each sister. Through love, deception, trust, and control, each sister finds their own type of fulfillment in a harsh new world until the one piece of happiness that binds them together, is threatened to be lost. The book offers an understanding of immigration process, the complications and the excitement of building a new life and the history of discrimination of Chinese-Americans. The book expands over several decades pre and post WWII and documents the changes worldwide and within a small section of America through the growth of the film industry in California, Chinatown and the American fear of the Chinese during the birth of Communist China. (  )1  suzannetrice | Nov 3, 2009 | Pearl and May are two "beautiful girls" in Shanghai, but when their father agrees to marry them off to American Chinese to settle a gambling debt the girls begin to realise how precarious their lives are. Then the Japanese invade, Pearl is gang raped alongside her mother and May struggles alone to save her life. The girls eventually find passage to California to join their husbands, though a long delay at Angel Island (made longer by the girls' decision to answer awkwardly to allow May's illegitimate child to be born on American soil and given to Pearl to pretend is her's) lead them to question if their new lives will be all that they seem. In fact they aren't, but the longer the girls stay in California the more they realise how much they need each other. Quite a lot is packed into this novel, and while it is good the last 1/4 feels very rushed, taking the sisters to new places in what feels like quite a showdown but is never fully explained or goes anywhere. The ultimate ending is quite abrupt and ambiguous, though perhaps there is a sequel planned that will continue Pearl and Joy's story in Mao's China? (  ) Elishibai | Nov 1, 2009 | The book revolves around two sisters who grew up wealthy in Shanghai until their father lost all of his money gambling. they were sold as brides to pay off his debts. They had to escape the Japanese invasion and finally moved to Los Angeles. There they endure the racism toward all Asians that WWII brought about. ( ) Beth350 | Oct 30, 2009 | 
 Lisa See’s “Shanghai Girls” is much loftier than its cover art’s stunning portrait of beautifully adorned Asian women. The author of “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” has written a broadly sweeping tale...
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0739328255, Paperback)Book Description For readers of the phenomenal bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love--a stunning new novel from Lisa See about two sisters who leave Shanghai to find new lives in 1930s Los Angeles.May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl’s parents arrange for their daughters to marry “Gold Mountain men” who have come from Los Angeles to find brides. But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel’s Island (the Ellis Island of the West)--where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months--they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she’s pregnant the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know. A novel about two sisters, two cultures, and the struggle to find a new life in America while bound to the old, Shanghai Girls is a fresh, fascinating adventure from beloved and bestselling author Lisa See. Amazon Exclusive: Lisa See on Shanghai Girls I’m writing this on a plane to Shanghai. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about all the things I want to see and do on this research trip: look deeper into the Art Deco movement in Shanghai, visit a 17th-century house in a village of 300 people to observe the Sweeping the Graves Festival, and check out some old theaters in Beijing. But as I sit on the plane, I’m not thinking of the adventures that are ahead but of the people and places I’ve left behind. I’ve been gone from home only a few hours and already I’m homesick! This puts me in mind of Pearl and May, the characters in Shanghai Girls. This feeling--longing for home and missing the people left behind--is at the heart of the novel. We live in a nation of immigrants. We all have someone in our families who was brave enough, scared enough, or crazy enough to leave the home country to come to America. I’m a real mutt in terms of ancestry, but I know that the Chinese side of my family left China because they were fleeing war, famine, and poverty. They were lured to America in hopes of a better life, but leaving China also meant saying goodbye to the homes they’d been born in, to their parents, brothers, and sisters, and to everything and everyone they knew. This experience is the blood and tears of American experience. Pearl and May are lucky, because they come to America together. They’re sisters and they have each other. I’ve always wanted to write about sisters and I finally got my chance with Shanghai Girls. You could say that either I’m an only child or that I’m one of four sisters, because I have a former step-sister I’ve known for over 50 years and two half-sisters from different halves who I’ve known since they were born. Is Shanghai Girls autobiographical? Not really, but my sister Katharine and I once had a fight that was like the flour fight that May and Pearl got into when they were girls. And there was an ice cream incident that I used in the novel that sent my sister Clara right down memory lane when she read the manuscript. I’m also the eldest, and we all know what that means. I’m the one who’s supposed to be the bossy know-it-all. (But if that’s true, then why are they the ones who are always right?) What I know is that we’re very different from each other and our life experiences couldn’t be more varied, and yet we have a deep emotional connection that goes way beyond friendship. My sisters knew me when I was a shy little kid, helped me survive my first broken heart, share the memories of bad family car trips, and were at my side for the happiest moments in my life. More recently, we’ve begun to share things like the loss of our childhood homes, the changing of the neighborhoods we grew up in, and the frailties and illnesses of our myriad parents. My emotions and experiences are deeply entwined with the stories I write. So as I fly over the Pacific, of course I’m thinking about May and Pearl, the people and places they left behind, the hopes and dreams that kept them moving forward, and the strength and solace they found in each other, but I’m thinking about myself too. As soon as I get to the hotel, I’m going to call my husband and sons to tell them I arrived safely, and then I’m going to send some e-mails to my sisters.--Lisa See (Photo © Patricia Williams) (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:15:39 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
LibraryThing AuthorLisa See is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
Abebooks |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
