Goodreads, you are spoiling me for anything other than reading! I had no intentions of whiling away the day by reading a book, but I received my recent win, "Dreams of Joy" on Thursday, started reading Saturday morning and couldn't stop. I have read Lisa See's other books ("Snowflower and the Secret Fan", "Peony in Love", "Shanghi Girls") so was very pleased to score this win. "Dreams of Joy" is a continuation of the "Shanghi Girls" story--in some ways I wish I had re-read "Shanghi Girls" before I started "Dreams of Joy", just so that I could refresh the characters in my head.
"Dreams" is the story of Joy, Pearl's daughter. (This is hard, I don't want to spoil the story by sharing too much.) Basically, Joy finds out some family secrets and leaves her home (America) and goes to China, where she buys into the communist philosophy. Along the way she loses her naivety, falls in love, meets her father, learns that she is a strong person, as well as to appreciate her family. Basically she grows up.
Meanwhile her mom (Pearl) follows her to China and learns some things about her ownself, her relationship with her sister, as well as her daughter.
Really liked this book. As in See's other books, you will learn about Chinese culture and history. In this book, there are several characters with bound feet. With the onset of communism, women were discouraged from this practice. In fact, those who had bound feet were encouraged to unbind them, which turns out to be a painstaking process with less than ideal results. Although the feet will unfurl, they cannot be "normal" since the bones were broken in the binding process when they were young. In the afterward the author mentions the photos of Joseph Rupp and his bound feet project. It was interesting to read the stories of these women, who just accepted this rite of passage as necessary to getting a husband, as well as to see their photos. You can visit the website here: http://www.josephrupp.com/bfindex2.html
Highly recommend this book!
"Dreams" is the story of Joy, Pearl's daughter. (This is hard, I don't want to spoil the story by sharing too much.) Basically, Joy finds out some family secrets and leaves her home (America) and goes to China, where she buys into the communist philosophy. Along the way she loses her naivety, falls in love, meets her father, learns that she is a strong person, as well as to appreciate her family. Basically she grows up.
Meanwhile her mom (Pearl) follows her to China and learns some things about her ownself, her relationship with her sister, as well as her daughter.
Really liked this book. As in See's other books, you will learn about Chinese culture and history. In this book, there are several characters with bound feet. With the onset of communism, women were discouraged from this practice. In fact, those who had bound feet were encouraged to unbind them, which turns out to be a painstaking process with less than ideal results. Although the feet will unfurl, they cannot be "normal" since the bones were broken in the binding process when they were young. In the afterward the author mentions the photos of Joseph Rupp and his bound feet project. It was interesting to read the stories of these women, who just accepted this rite of passage as necessary to getting a husband, as well as to see their photos. You can visit the website here: http://www.josephrupp.com/bfindex2.html
Highly recommend this book!
1 comment:
In this much anticipated sequel to SHANGHAI GIRLS, Lisa See does herself proud in reconnecting us with Pearl and Joy. Unfortunately, May, Pearl's sister, is not a main character in this book.
Joy is 19 years old and has learned a startling and upsetting truth about her life. Harboring unnecessary guilt over the suicide of her father, learning the truth about her mother, and generally being unhappy, Joy hastily decides that China is the only place for her at this moment in her young life.
Full of hopes and dreams and totally ignorant of the political venue in China at the moment, Joy hops on plane after plane and finally arrives in China. She is gung-ho into the Chinese way of life, fully committed to helping and doing what she can for 'her' country. What a mess she has walked into -- communism is running rampant, Chairman Mao is at his peak in power, and his program called the Great Leap Forward is well underway. This 'awesome' program will create poverty, famine, and over 45 million estimated deaths in China. Joy unwittingly becomes a part of all of this.
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