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khleigh

K.H. Leigh's Blogstravaganza

Reader, writer, 'rithmaticker.

Currently reading

The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton, Nina Bawden
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Portia Rosenberg, Susanna Clarke

Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter

Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter - Adeline Yen Mah I liked this book a whole lot more until the last fifty-or-so pages. At that point, it devolved into a laundry list of perceived slights, petty bickering, and old grudges. The narrator, Adeline, went from being winningly naive about her family to being determinedly oblivious, to the point that it made it difficult for me to buy a lot of what she was saying. It began to feel very one-sided, as she portrayed herself as being entirely innocent while everyone else ganged up on her.

Prior to that point, it was a mildly interesting story about a woman who accomplished a lot despite a highly dysfunctional upbringing, set against the rapidly changing culture of China in the second half of the twentieth century.