Shanghai girls by Lisa See

[anniebevman]

I finished reading this book last month and I loved every minute of it. Lisa see is a great author she truly has a gift. Has anyone else read Shanghai girls? What did you think of it?

[HRMHayley]

Shanghai Girls is a beautiful, yet hard book to read. Lisa See has an eloquence about her that makes reading her work a true experience but the subject matter, the journey of two sisters from the opulence of pre-WW2 Shanghai to the foreign Occidental world of Hollywood, can be difficult.

The reason it can be difficult is because you love these characters, you empathise, you hurt, you hunger and you cry in unison with them. The sisters, Pearl and May, face a journey that they could never have anticipated, everything they know and love ripped out from beneath their feet in the early days of the novel and you quickly come to understand that this feeling of being off-kilter will not fade. You are told to trust a certain perspective, but as you travel further into this novel you realise that nothing is certain, nothing can be trusted.

It is the haunting first novel in a two part series and you put it down, gasping for the sequel before the pages shut. Much like the journey of many women of this period, you get the impression that nothing is finished, you will need to keep going to find your happy ever after if there even is one...