Monday, January 4, 2016

Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah

Happy New Year!

2016 is going to be a huge year for me as I finish up second semester of junior year, start my college search, and work on those application this fall! Makes me dizzy just thinking about college!

Where has time gone? 

It just seems like yesterday I started this blog as an 8th grader in 2013. With all the crazy school and extracurricular schedules, I am incredibly lucky to call Bookaroma as my safe haven for me to sit down, relax, and let my mind and fingers guide my thoughts about something I love - reading.

To kick off the New Year, I chose to reread one of my all time favorites: Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah.














My Ratings:
Vocabulary:  *****
Ingredients: *****
Satisfaction: *****
Lexile Level: 960 L
Genre:  Non-fiction, Memoirs
My Opinions: This riveting memoir of Adeline Yen Mah's childhood in a wealthy Chinese family during the 1940s provokes both the reader's sympathies and intrigue as Mah tells the story of her painful childhood and her ultimate triumph and courage in the face of despair. Considered bad luck after her mother dies giving birth to her, Mah only falls into more misery after her father remarries (get the Cinderella reference now?). While her stepsiblings are spoilt, Mah and her siblings are left to carry the burden of an antagonistic stepmother. Despite her successes in boarding school, successes in literary competitions, and struggle to maintain her relationship with her beloved grandfather (Ye Ye) and Aunt Baba, nothing is enough to compensate for what Yah truly yearns for: the love and understanding of her family.

The story mostly revolves around her stay at boarding school and the ending the story makes her memoir a lot more realistic. I will give you a clue: it is not about marrying Prince Charming. All I can tell you is that her dreams do come true without the help of a fairy godmother, pumpkin, or a couple of mice.

This is an excellent book for school projects (middle and high school) because of its rich concentration of literary devices and positive morals.

This book reminded me of Bittermelon by Cara Chow (reviewed earlier) because of the background both characters come from, the pressure surrounding their academic lives, their passion for writing, and the struggle to find a place where they truly belonged. As I mentioned in the review for Bittermelon, I felt a strange connection with the character Fei Ting. The same can be said about Adeline and me. It is not necessarily our families that are similar but rather our backgrounds and the atmosphere we are living in. The atmosphere that forces us to strive for the best in anything we pursue; that places a working-spirit on us.

My first 2016 request to you: get this book and read it! 

Hoping 2016 will turn out to be all and more than what you wished for!