Synopsis:

Daughters are the Ang family’s curse.

In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother—abused by the family for failing to birth a boy—finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed.

Without an Ang male to punish, the land-seizing cadres choose Hai, as the eldest child, to stand trial for her family’s crimes. She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come, the women plan their escape. Starving and penniless but resourceful, they forge travel permits and embark on a thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them.

From the countryside to the bustling city of Qingdao, and onward to British Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan, they witness the changing tide of a nation and the plight of multitudes caught in the wake of revolution. But with the loss of their home and the life they’ve known also comes new freedom—to take hold of their fate, to shake free of the bonds of their gender, and to claim their own story.

Told in assured, evocative prose, with impeccably drawn characters, Daughters of Shandong is a hopeful, powerful story about the resilience of women in war; the enduring love between mothers, daughters, and sisters; and the sacrifices made to lift up future generations.

Rating:

Review:

I have been on something of an audiobook spree the past month or two because it is such an easy way to listen to some great books when relax my brain. My life has been insanely busy and stressful so it’s a good way to get in more reading time while I am busy cleaning the bathrooms, making dinner or running a bath for a tiny human. I picked this one up based on the synopsis alone and it was worth the listen.

This book is the fictionalized story of the author’s grandmother. The family had always talked in hushed tones about her grandmother’s flight from the Communist Revolution in China but everyone refused to talk about it further. So the author went on a quest to further understand what her grandmother had gone through and started researching. Once she discovered as much as she could she wrote this book and filled in some of the missing details with fiction.

It was a beautifully written story. The prose carries you along like a gentle river before suddenly plunging you down a steep waterfall when something shockingly evil happens. The trauma of this entire family of women is laid out in horrifying but hopeful detail. In the story the mother never gives up hope. She never stops trying to better the lives of her children. She never stops sacrificing for her children’s benefit, even when they hated her for it. A true mother is displayed on these pages. The kind of mother that will endure anything without complaint if it saves her children an ounce of pain. This book brought me to tears quite a few times.

The only detractor from this book was that the plot lags for a little while in the middle. While the family may have been in a transition period, I didn’t want to feel like I was also in a transition period too. My attention started to wander and I hoped the pacing would eventually recover. It did recover and the ending was logical and…well, it wasn’t exactly satisfying but it was sweet on many levels. But given the entirety of the story I don’t think it was supposed to be a satisfying ending. There isn’t a happily ever after when you’ve lived through such horror. Sometimes the happily ever after is being safe with your children, and trying to make it a better life again tomorrow.

The author’s note at the end put a very touching end to this story. It tells another tale of love and devotion. One of hers to her family and to telling the story of their generational trauma so that no one forgets what it took for her family to thrive. It put an extra poignant touch to the story.