Shanghai Girls: A Novel by Lisa See


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It has been a while since I have been able to give a book 5 stars, but I felt this book really deserved it.

Shanghai Girls is the story of two sisters in pre WWII Shanghai, or the Paris of Asia. Their family is well off, they're beautiful girls free to do as they please. They are modern and fashionable and happy. However, in one swoop, their lives change. They are set up in arranged marriage's and are to move to America. See tells the struggles of these two girls, Pearl and May, trying to leave Shanghai and run from their future, but eventually they arrive in a country where they are not wanted except by their husband's and family.

See write's of them americanizing themselve's in Los Angeles, their wait on Angel Island, and the sacrifice's they make to belong in America. Until Communism takes over China and every chinese immigrant is a suspect of communism and has the threat of being deported.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and found myslef engrossed in the story of these sister's as well as reading the real hardships of chinese immigrants wanting to live in America to make a better life for themselve's. It sadden's me though at how much they were discriminated against except even though Chinatown became quite the tourist attraction.

My favorite quote from this whole book was, "Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life."

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