Lisa See

A continuation of "Shanghai Girls" finds a devastated Joy fleeing to China to search for her real father while her mother, Pearl, desperately pursues her, a dual quest marked by their encounters with the nation's intolerant Communist culture.

a novel

Dreams of joy

im so happy for this ending and the fact that joy’s new years style painting of her mom, aunt, herself, and her baby made it all the way out 😭😭😭 actually chocking in tears. this reunion is everything to me and the fact that ZG also made it out and he’s finally reuniting with May???😭😭😭🥲🥲🥲

Luoyi

He goes to a corner and picks up a cardboard tube. "It's your painting. They said there was no room for your bourgeois thoughts in China."

Then, to Ta-ming, who is eye to eye with Dun on his arms, he says, “I brought you something. Look.” And there in the table next to the telephone is Ta-ming’s violin.

Ta-ming is the first to react, running forward, squealing "Baba!"-the first time he has said this and being lifted into Dun's arms.

When I was a girl, my father never once hugged me, but now he puts his arms around me and holds me tight.

"Art is the heartbeat of the artist, and you've found your heartbeat."

Happiness out of horror, that's what I felt. When I tried to explain that to my mom, she said from her bed, I look at you and I see a double rosetwo beautiful colors, one in soft yellow, the other in bright pink. You are part me and part May, and I'm so happy for that."

Then Z.G. and I watch as he counts out one grain of rice at a timeone to Z.G., one to me, one for himself-setting them on the table in three small piles.

held my breath while reading the rest of the book from this point on

"Pearl, maybe it's nothing and I don't want you to get upset, but where my family was from a chicken feather was an urgent distress signal."

"I won't hear of it." Z.G. steps between us, loops his arms through ours- just as he used to do with May and me years ago when we walked together down the street-and leads us to the limousine. "Come, Come. Get in the car."

"Bah!" Sung-ling snorts. "If a man is a mountain and a woman is water, then it is the woman confirms the mountain's existence. As water, a woman can go anywhere. It gives life. It nurtures life. A man is reflected in her water."

"Yes, you're both motivated by idealism," Z.G. agrees. "These are hallmarks of both your signs."

The painting is of a young peasant woman standing in a field of roses, holding a basket filled with her pickings, and tucking one of the blooms behind her right ear. Who is the central figure? Me! Z.G. has painted me!

He reminds me of my father-not the one sitting across from me in his elegant suit but the one who was worried when I was sick, who made special treats for me, who told me bedtime stories.

I loved this book. The  details of the China during the Cultural Revolution are described so vividly and it is terrifying. But I also love the development of both Pearl and Joy in this book and how they began understanding each other better. Pearl and Joy are everything to me and I am so happy they got a happy reunion at the end of the book. Especially with both ZG and Don in Hong Kong with them. I have so much respect for the women in this book and they love. It’s such a powerful story and I have to admit I cried multiple times reading the ending.

Absolutely hated Tao. Someone punch him for me please. 

I loved this book. The  details of the China during the Cultural Revolution are described so vividly and it is terrifying. But I also love the development of both Pearl and Joy in this book and how they began understanding each other better. Pearl and Joy are everything to me and I am so happy they got a happy reunion at the end of the book. Especially with both ZG and Don in Hong Kong with them. I have so much respect for the women in this book and they love. It’s such a powerful story and I have to admit I cried multiple times reading the ending.

Absolutely hated Tao. Someone punch him for me please. 

julia

I really liked this book. It was a very satisfying conclusion to Shanghai Girls. I felt the author did a very good job of portraying Communist China and the struggles of Joy and Pearl.

altlovesbooks

This will be a short review, mostly because there isn't a whole lot to really say about it that hasn't already been covered. Joy returns to China to seek her roots and her family, and gets wrapped up in all the fervor surrounding Red China in the late 1950s. She makes (many) poor decisions. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.

Joy spends most of the book being an unreliable narrator, where her poor decision-making skills are buried in her optimism and intentionally only seeing things at the commune she lives at in China the way she wants them to be seen. She genuinely seems to believe everything she's being told at the commune, which seems like a strange departure from the confident, world-experienced college student she was portrayed to be in the first book. Everything that happened to her felt very much contingent on her remaining (willingly or otherwise) oblivious to what's going on around her, and it was hard to really feel bad for her because of it.

I'm glad I read the book to wrap up the events from Shanghai Girls, but ultimately neither book really felt really solid to me.

Tracey O’Rourke

I really enjoyed this book. It was a little slow getting into it, but the second half flew by. Fascinating story of post-revolutionary China.

Jessica Smith

See's books are always really enjoyable, and this is no exception. If you've read 'Shanghai Girls', it's almost a requirement to read this. It's very different, being set in Maoist China instead of the US, but just as historically rich. See offers us a fair and critical view of this period of Chinese history, with an afterword somberly informing us that 45 million people died in the Great Leap Forward, at best estimate. It's also refreshing to read a novel that doesn't shy away from mentioning "feminine hygiene".

Dreams of joy a novel

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