Review of Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

Sister.

If you have a sister, that word probably brings a few emotions to mind.  Sister relationships are fascinating and multi-faceted.  They can be supportive and loving or antagonistic and critical.  And they can be all at once. 

I’m thankful that I have a fabulous relationship with my sister.  I can call my sister and talk for hours.  Back when we were both stay-at-home moms, we often called each other 3-4 times a day, for all kinds of reasons, from mundane to profound.  I trust her completely.  I know she’s there for me, no matter what.  It’s a comfort to really understand the depth of your relationships, in your heart, in your mind, in your gut. 

But every relationship has its boundaries.  They all have places where you don’t go.   My two closest girlfriends each have sisters with whom they are extremely close and yet, there are some things they just don’t talk about with each other.  Even my sister and I, for all the closeness and supportiveness in our relationship, have boundaries, too.  I imagine all relationships have them, no matter how close or significant. 

 

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See is a story about the Chin sisters, Pearl and May.  Their relationship is as complex as any sister relationship, with love and support and betrayal and heartbreak, and quite a lot of antagonism.    It begins in 1937 Shanghai.  We follow their lives through the Japanese invasion and their escape to America, to find them begrudgingly settled in San Francisco during WWII and afterwards.  It spans several decades in the characters’ lives, and through many life stages.  Even with a rich historical and cultural backdrop, the sister and family dynamics are what I found most interesting throughout this book. 

The Chin sisters’ relationship is strewn with jealousy.  Each felt that the other one had it better than she did, or one was the parents’ favorite, or had the better husband or the better job, or one sacrificed more than the other…it got a little annoying a few times because I just couldn’t relate.  I don’t see my own sister the way Pearl and May see theirs—with as much resentment as love.  This did however, give the BABBs much to discuss---as we all have family and everyone can identify with a family story.  Mostly I pitied the Chin sisters because all that hurt and resentment held them back.

Shanghai Girls is a thoroughly enjoyable read and very good historical fiction, even though the subject material and setting are often disturbing and depressing. 

Ratings  (For an explanation of my rating factors, please visit the Rating System Key page.)

Crack Factor – 8.0. 

Tears Shed Factor –  N/A. There’s plenty of drama in this book but I didn’t find it emotional, although I imagine many people would.

Distraction Factor – 9.25.  Shanghai Girls is a haunting tale.  Just like in See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, (one of my favorite books) there are images from this story that I’ll never forget. 

Enrichment Factor – 9.0.  Immigrant stories are frequently stories of hardship and discrimination.  I really wonder if there was every any group that came here without it.  The Chinese immigrants in this story had it pretty bad; they maneuvered through the anti-Japanese sentiments during WWII and then the anti-communist rampage right afterwards.  I love fiction that gives me new knowledge and understanding of history and culture.  This time and place was something I’d never studied before.

PeopleFactor – 8.5. See wrote the book in the first person.  All the characters and events are narrated by Pearl, which definitely adds some limitation as you can’t always get inside the heads of the other characters.  I don’t see that as a problem here, because through Pearl’s eyes, the reader gets a very good sense of all the characters and See crafts them like onions, with layers that Pearl peels away over time to reveal just how complex each one is.  As soon as you think you’ve got them all figured out, See gives us a little more insight and…You’ll change your mind about everybody over and over again.  It made for a more interesting read because the characters and their relationships evolve so much over time. 

Story Telling Factor – 8.5. The majority of the BABBs had a couple of complaints about this book: 1) It ends very abruptly, and 2) they didn’t always like how See turned the plot. On a whole, however, I found See’s plot twists quite pivotal and necessary to keep the pace of the story going and bring certain characters to their destinies and certain plot lines to their climaxes.  But I do have to admit the ending did tick me off.  Apparently See had to set it up for the sequel:  Finding Joy.  Why write one book, when you can sell two at twice the price?

Writing Skills Factor – 8.5.  See’s writing is raw.  It’s very simple and clear and to the point.  That rawness adds to the distraction factor as well.  She doesn’t leave out the nasty and upsetting details.

Bad Ass Babe Factor –  I’m abstaining from this rating.  I didn’t really like Pearl or May that much as people, even though they were well developed characters.  In the Bad Ass Babe arena, however, Pearl gets points for sheer endurance and their mother gets Mama Bear points. 

Total Rating: 8.625

Review of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I have a really great soup recipe.  It’s called “Garlicky Mango Soup” and was the first place soup contest winner in Vegetarian Times magazine around 15 years ago.  When I made this soup for my parents the first time, my dad said “Wow!  This is the BEST soup I’ve ever had!”  My mom took a little offense to this (not really) because she’d been cooking soup for him for years and her soups are pretty awesome.  I took Dad’s compliment as genuine, because I know that in that moment, it really WAS the best soup he’d ever had.  I also took it with a realistic grain of salt, because I know that next week, he’d think the same thing about the Split Pea with Ham that my mom would make for him.  And he’d be telling the truth both times.  A comment like this is par for the course with both my parents.  They are incredibly enthusiastic when they appreciate something.  According to my dad I also make the BEST blueberry pie he’s ever had.  My mom is the same way.  She enjoys food, books, movies, friends, a well stocked grocery store, drives in the country and so many other things with simple joy.   I happen to think this is one of the best gifts my parents could have given me---the ability to get really excited about something you love---appreciation with enthusiasm.   When you can REALLY enjoy a simple thing in life, it makes your life so much nicer.  You may occasionally get teased for golden retriever excitement by the negative nellies of the world, but in general, you’ll be a happier person for it.      

With that disclaimer out of the way, let me get on with the book review.  I LOVED this book.  It is easily one of my FAVORITE books of all time.  This is the kind of book I will tell everyone about ad nauseam for the next umpteen months.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer & Annie Barrows had me laughing, crying, excited, hopeful, fearful, and surprised.  It is the story of Juliet, an English writer, searching for her next story.  She finds it quite by accident when she receives a letter from a resident of Guernsey Island.  He and his neighbors share with her their stories of German occupation during WWII.  Juliet gets incredibly close to her subjects and even ends up with a place for herself in their story.  Almost the entire narrative is written as correspondence between the characters.  This approach makes for a story that moves quickly and gives you multiple characters’ perspectives. 

Readers will love the characters in this book.  I also loved the community that these people created.  Even in the midst of war, occupation, poverty and starvation, they brought out the best in each other.  We should all be so lucky to have friends and neighbors that care so much about each other.  They did what they have to do to protect each other and provide for each other.  I found it profound, humbling and inspiring.  It’s the kind of story that will make you believe in the goodness of people and want to be a better person yourself. 

Ratings  (For an explanation of my rating factors, please visit the Rating System Key page.)

Crack Factor – 9.9.  I might list this book as part of my definition of a crack book.  Seriously—I was that hooked on it. 

Tears Shed Factor – 9.9.  This book is an emotional workout.  I laughed out loud.  Some parts made me angry.  Others made me sad.   And I wept.  Several times.  (Many times.)  

  

Distraction Factor – 9.5.  If you had less than 24 hours to decide whether or not to send your children to live with strangers, in order to protect them from an invading army that is headed for your home, what would you do?  What if you were in a prison camp and your fellow prisoner was being threatened by a guard?  Or what would you do with the 2-year old little girl, left behind when her mother, your neighbor and friend, is taken--arrested and deported by enemy soldiers?  These are just some of the questions the characters in this novel face and they haunted me.  And still do. 

Enrichment Factor –  9.0.  I have above average geographical knowledge and I actually knew that the island of Guernsey existed, but I didn’t know how close it was to the French coastline and I knew nothing about its occupation by the German army.  This book described the hardships of wartime and occupation with excruciating detail. 

PeopleFactor – 9.75.  These characters will work their way into your heart and they’ll stay there for a long time.

Story Telling Factor – 9.5.  The authors have a great knack for weaving multiple plot lines into one book—this was a war story, a community story, a romance, a tragedy, and at times, even a comedy. 

Writing Skills Factor – 9.5. The correspondence style was a unique twist—but a great way to give you a sense of each character in his or her own words.  The authors did this very well.  They also were profoundly good at writing emotion and provoking emotional response. 

Bad Ass Babe Factor –  Elizabeth 9.9.  This character is the only one you never know first hand, you only hear about her from other characters.  She is strong, brave and loyal.  She is fearless and a fierce friend, the kind of heroine you want in your corner.  Kat, 9.5 – I don’t know if it’s appropriate to give a 4 year old a BAB rating, but I thought this kid was cool.  Juliet 9.0 – The protagonist is pretty cool, too.  Very smart, sassy and caring.  And she’s a writer, so she gets extra points for that.    

Hotter than Adam Factor – Dawsey, 9.  You gotta love a middle aged bachelor who is helping to raise his missing neighbor’s 4 year old daughter. 

Total Rating: 9.495

Review of Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

This is a warning to all of my faithful review readers out there.  I am guilty of more than a little hero worship when it comes to Isabel Allende.  She could write “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy brown dog,” and I’d think it was genius.  I’ve read many of her books, both in English and Spanish, and I’d have to place her among my very favorite authors.  Island Beneath the Sea is one of her more recent publications and I didn’t have to know a thing about it to know that I’d love it.  True to form, Allende doesn’t disappoint.  Luscious, Lyrical, Mythical, Epic, Sweeping, Romantic, Tragic, Thrilling, Uplifting, Thought-provoking, Sexy, Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful is how I’d describe Allende’s books.  When I read Allende, I can almost hear the orchestra soundtrack in the background, and taste wine and ripe fruit on my lips.   

Allende herself is quite interesting; a Peruvian-born Chilean with US citizenship and family ties to the coup-ousted Chilean President, Salvador Allende, she could easily be a character in some of her own novels.  Check out her Wikipedia listing and be prepared to be impressed.  I read her first novel, The House of the Spirits in 1994 and it remains, to this day, one of my all-time favorite books—I’ve read that book both in Spanish and English.  I’ve also read The Stories of Eva Luna (in Spanish), The Infinite Plan, Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia and My Invented Country (non-fiction) by Allende. 

Island Beneath the Sea is a sweeping saga.  It is the story of Zarité Sedella, born into slavery on the island of Saint-Dominigue, the French colony that would later become Haiti.  It takes place in Saint-Domingue, Cuba and Louisiana and spans 30+ years of Zarité’s life from childhood slavery through love and loss and tragedy and war and freedom and triumph. 

Ratings  (For an explanation of my rating factors, please visit the Rating System Key page.)

Crack Factor – 8.5.  The story moves quickly in this book, but, I read 3 other books between the time I started this book and when I finished it, so It did take 2^nd place to The Fiery Cross, Oryx and Crake and The Jane Austen Book Club.  So…it’s still awesome, but not as addicting as they were.

Distraction Factor 9.  I kept coming back to one of the concepts Allende repeated in the story.  Zarité would ask one of her fellow slaves, who had access to travel, why it was that she didn’t escape to freedom?  Her reply was something like…what good would it do for me to be free when no one else here is?  She came back to it again, when one character is planning to free his father’s slaves upon inheritance, but his teacher says…what good will that do if it doesn’t abolish slavery completely?  200 people that cannot support themselves are not going to right any wrongs; it’s better to work toward changing the whole system, and in that conversation, he created an abolitionist.  This idea intrigued me, because I often think, even a small thing can change the world, but Allende seemed to say that a small thing didn’t matter in the scope of a big problem.  Food for thought, anyway…I’m still thinking about it.

Tears Shed Factor – 8. Zarité’s character is a caregiver.  She mothers many people, not limited to her own children.  Now that I am a parent, mother stories affect me more.  It was the mother/child parts that resonated with me the most, both the happy and sad parts. 

Enrichment Factor – 9.  I knew almost nothing about the colonial Caribbean.  It was a unique backdrop to a great story and I almost want to check out a book on 18^th century Haiti just to learn more.  It was also fascinating to think of the Louisiana Purchase from the perspective of the French citizens being sold by Napoleon…as a US citizen, I’d never thought of that before. 

PeopleFactor – 9.9. Allende’s characters are full-formed, including the antagonists.  You understand her bad guys just as much as you understand her heroine.  She doesn’t always let you keep your favorite characters, but she often gives you reason to nod in satisfaction as the antagonists reap the consequences of their actions. 

Story Telling Factor – 9.5.  This is a captivating tale.  It is well plotted and planned and thoroughly enjoyable.

Writing Skills Factor – 9.5. Allende writes in Spanish, which is a very picturesque language.  Even through translation, she is incredibly visual in her style.  It makes for very rich prose. 

Bad Ass Babe Factor – 8.5. Zarité is a great character with serious courage.  She has many difficult choices to make throughout the course of her life, and I was impressed with how she dealt with many of those difficult choices. 

Total Rating – 8.99

Review of Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

My Junior and Senior year of college I lived in a student co-op: 50 college kids in two old Victorian houses, yellow with red trim. It was a dump, like most student housing is, but it was home because of the people and the attachments you made within those walls.  Camaraderie and interesting conversation were some of the many benefits of living there.  I remember one dinner table discussion:  What would you have been if you had been born in a different time?   (Or maybe it was a past life kind of conversation…I’m not sure, it was a long time ago.)  My roommate (who is still one of my very best friends umpteen years later) said “a medieval beer wench.”  We all laughed.  One of the other women, whose name I don’t remember, but whose small, delicate face and pin straight blond hair are still vivid in my mind, said “With the lack of options available to most women, I’m sure I would have been a prostitute.”  Discussion ensued and I don’t remember the rest, but that comment stayed with me.  It made me so thankful to live now, in a time and place where I have options.

Plenty of people in the world still don’t have the options I have had.  I know how fortunate I am.  Not to trivialize that thought, but one of the many benefits to living here and now is that I get to read fabulous books which drive that point home.  Pope Joan by Donna Wolfolk Cross is one of those books.  A friend recommended it to me, knowing that I like historical dramas; it was one of her favorites.  It is based on the story/legend/rumor/(fact?) that a woman (may have) sat on the papal throne in the 9^th century.  Cross crafts a great story around this idea and then at the end, she gives us the details of all her research, both the things that point toward this conclusion and away from it.  Apparently there are more than 500 references in historical documents that this actually could have happened.  And yet the historical record during this time is so patchy, and this is the kind of thing the church would have wanted to bury, so it’s anyone’s guess if it happened or not.  So we begin with this mystery---was there a female pope?  Cross’s book makes you want to believe she was real. 

To sum up the plot, Joan is a very intelligent little girl, in a time when girls were not educated and when women had almost no power or control over their own lives.  She has to go to great lengths to learn to read, in secret, with fears of even being killed for her attempt at knowledge since current religious understanding was that an educated woman was unnatural and therefore against God’s law.  During a barbarian raid, her brother and everyone they know are murdered by invaders.  With so few options before her, Joan assumes his name, his clothes and his life.  She enters a monastery.   As a boy, all the hardships she had faced as a girl, being persecuted and ridiculed for her wit, disappear.  In the monastery, she quickly earns the respect of her peers and is able to continue to study, learn, and use her knowledge openly.   Turns of fate bring her to Rome and her reputation as a skilled physician enables her to work closely with the current pope.  Her popularity among the Roman people is widespread and amidst political upheaval, they elect her the new Pope upon her predecessor’s death. 

The biggest surprise for me in this book, however, was a love story thread that weaves through almost the entire novel.  As a teenager, Joan meets Gerold, a wealthy, intelligent and educated man.  He becomes her benefactor of sorts, her protector, and her friend, which quickly turns into something more.  He’s the only person with whom she can truly be herself and let her knowledge and intelligence shine.  (It was disruptions in this storyline that made me skip ahead---Will they ever get back together?-----I MUST know!!!!)  This part of Joan’s life is what brought the question of option and choice into the forefront.   Gerold appreciates her knowledge and intelligence, and wants to share his life with her, but it comes to a point where she has to choose: Stay with Gerold and be (to all others) an “unnatural” woman who has no power or influence and can’t speak her mind in public, or hide her gender to continue her education and live a life where her intellect and education are encouraged and appreciated openly.  

Another theme in the book that I found particularly fascinating was the question of true faith or forced submission.  The only avenues for education for anyone in that time came via the church.  Naturally that is where Joan goes to quench her thirst for knowledge; yet the author never explicitly says that Joan believes in Christianity.  Joan has a deep, personal understanding that many people of the day only pretended to believe in the church’s teachings to escape starvation, poverty, torture and/or death.  The author brings this idea up several times throughout the book, with several different characters.  Joan’s pagan mother was one of them, only marrying a priest for food and protection.  Outwardly she complied with expectations, but inwardly, she never gave up her pagan Gods.  To Joan, her mother represents love and tenderness.  Her Christian father is the complete opposite:  hateful, oppressive, and abusive.  His harsh understanding and interpretation of his faith directly correlate to the pain and misery Joan feels in her situation.  As an adult, Joan preaches Christianity because it is only within the church structure that she is able to learn, speak her mind, and be a productive, helpful member of society.  Yet she resents that same institution for not allowing her to be herself and for forcing her to give up life as a woman with the people she loves.  So perhaps she was also one of the many who pretended to believe only to serve their purpose.  How ironic that she should rise to the highest level of the church if we never know for sure that she’s a believer? 

All in all, I really loved this book.  Joan’s struggles and triumphs, hopes and heartaches become your own as you travel with her from birth to death.  It’s got it all:  politics, religion, drama, family dynamics, love, hate, sex, betrayal, romance, medicine, war, murder and more. 

Here are my ratings.  I got a little feedback that my rating system was hard to understand.  There is a Rating System Key page to explain it, but I figured I’d do a little more explanation for each category in this and probably future reviews. 

CF (Crack Factor)---10  I really couldn’t put this book down.  I consumed 200 pages and stayed up past midnight the day I cracked the binding.  You will get hooked.

EF (Enrichment Factor)—8  I definitely learned new stuff in this book, especially with the author’s  description of her research at the end of the story. 

PF-People Factor-9  Joan & Gerold are really great characters, so are Joan’s parents and teachers and the popes and several of the other minor characters, but since it is a book mainly about one person, all the minor characters aren’t as richly drawn as they maybe could have been. 

TSF (Tears Shed Factor)—7 There are some heart wrenching parts; it will get to you. 

WSF-Writing Skills Factor—10—She’s good. Really good.

STF-Story Telling Factor-10—The author has a gift for storytelling.  She takes a blip in the historical record and creates a story that is hard to forget.  (I’m just realizing that maybe this factor is redundant as it would be hard to rate this one lower if the Crack Factor is high…Oh well, it’s here now.)

BABF (Bad Ass Babe Factor)—9  Joan is cool.  She’s a really smart, compassionate heroine.    

HTAF (To be explained soon Factor)--8  This is the only rating factor not yet explained in my Rating System Key because I have a whole post in the works about this one.  Basically this is the hot guy factor.  Gerold ranks pretty high on this scale.  He’s an all-around good man, smart, incredibly attractive, very loyal to Joan, and a tough guy to boot.  He doesn’t get a 9 because I did find him a little puppy dog-ish toward the end.  Joan jerks him around for years and while he gets a point for sticking with her, he gets two taken away for putting up with that crap.  I guess I found it just a tad unbelievable that he would have stayed with her so long, and yet the romantic in me loved that he did. 

Average/Total rating:  8.875