Unfortunately for some it was more of a fool’s gold mountain.

Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 307
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-4088-0112-3
First Published: 2009
Date Reviewed: 24th January 2013
Rating: 5/5

When Pearl and May’s father loses the family’s wealth and is threatened by a gang, the girls must marry the sons of another client and leave Shanghai for Los Angeles. The Japanese have started bombing China, but the sisters hope to trick the gang and somehow stay put, keeping their lives as models intact. But that cannot happen and instead they find themselves in dire circumstances before beginning the journey to a country that does not welcome Chinese people, seeking the protection of their new husbands and the family that claims to be making lots of money on the gold mountain.

Shanghai Girls is an excellent novel that looks at how the Japanese invasion of China, and then Communist China, affected those people who had left for America. With a well-developed cast of characters and a detailed backdrop, the story has an atmosphere that few readers, if any, could pass up.

Suffice to say that the story by itself is fantastic – See is a master at writing characters, story, and prose to hook the reader – but the brilliance of the book is the detailing and handling of the conflicts. Set over a couples of decades, beginning in the 1930s and ending in the late 1950s, See places the sisters in situations that allow her to fully explain the events of the times.

This does mean that the story is often gruesome. As in previous books See never shies away from in-depth examination of bound feet, for example, but whereas Snow Flower And The Secret Fan and Peony In Love were set in an earlier period and focused on different types of women, the modernity and setting in Shanghai Girls means that there is a look at how violence towards women escalates during war, and how intrusive and immoral people could be to those they saw as below them. However as much as the violence is explicit, See manages to balance her writing, staying on the line between unnecessary content and lessons.

One of the major aspects of the story is the way the Chinese who immigrated to America reacted to events at home, and how they balanced their old lives with the new ones. One part of this, for example, is the way in which many people wanted to keep traditions, but were not in favour of Mao; this is focused on when See brings in the interrogation of the Chinese by the American government who wanted to rid their land of Communists (and, indeed, simply rid the country of Chinese, full stop). Not only had the Chinese been held, sometimes for months, on their arrival during the Japanese occupation (when America was seeking to deport any illegal immigrants) but the beginning of Communism in China stopped the slow progress of tolerance and began a new wave of discrimination and hate, all in the name of keeping America’s liberty and freedom. Of the initial interrogations, See devotes whole chapters, letting the reader live with May and Pearl throughout the months they tried to gain freedom to travel to Los Angeles, rather than giving readers the easy task of simply knowing it happened. See’s wish to inform her readers of the history may be obvious and hard to read at times, but it is never overbearing or preachy.

See’s characters, for the most part, were all born in China, and whilst May and Pearl begin as modern Shanghai women – intent on being western – Pearl especially starts to see her parents’ traditions as something to adopt herself. This means that for a long time See is restricted to viewing the historical events through their eyes and in the context of immigrants. So when American-born Chinese characters are introduced, See not only shows the arguments that can arise from a culture clash, but also the way young minds can be susceptible to outside influences. And whilst her focus is on communism, See’s handling of the subject enables her message to be timeless.

As to the characters themselves they are developed to the extent that the reader may feel that longing for a continuation after the final pages. (In this regard it’s wonderful that there is a sequel, even if Shanghai Girls‘s cliff-hanger ending is difficult to accept.) And of course there is a vast scope – young and modern, modern but somewhat set in tradition, and strict tradition. Not only are the characters interesting in themselves but also the grouping of them as one family allows for the exploration of family and religious values.

There is a lot of information on the film industry at the time. The sisters, immigrants, can see the way in which Hollywood looks for the exotic rather than the realistic – portraying China as something it never was – as well as the discrimination and stupidity of relegating Chinese people to the roles of extras whilst employing caucasians to play the prominent Chinese characters in the script. The differences between the sisters gives See the opportunity to look at these issues from the view of the person who didn’t care, and the person who saw the hate for Asians. It also gives her the chance to comment on the way in which Asians often look the same to Westerners, where one character with talent is interchangeable with another who lacks it and the director does not realise why he needs so many takes. This issue is looked at further when the American Chinese have to take to wearing clothes with text that says they are not Japanese.

A particularly interesting aspect of the story is the way the sisters feel about each other. The reader may think time and again that this time they will have a bond-breaking argument, but See shows how arguments are different in families as well as showing how allowances are made.

Shanghai Girls spans many years but never feels rushed. The periods See chooses to skip are understandable and lets you see how life trundles along despite hardship. Because of the events See wanted to include in her story, the gaps make sense – this had the potential to be incredibly long when it is just the right length as it is.

Shanghai Girls is a look at war, culture, and everything that is included. It looks at the affects of war on family and country and gives a timeless message of what can happen if people do not work together during those wars. Above all it is the story of a family thrown together by circumstance where the one true bond is between two sisters, and includes the added effect that lies and suspicion have on lives. The book is a triumph in every way and whilst it ends on a huge cliff-hanger it is the sort of book that makes you desperate to move straight on to the sequel.

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Life after death. A great life.

Publisher: Crown (Random House)
Pages: 334
Type: Non-Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-307-59043-5
First Published: 22nd January 2013
Date Reviewed: 31st January 2013
Rating: 5/5

Aikman tells the story of life as a widow; first being dumped from the stereotypical support group, and then her quest to create a new sort of group – one focused on remaking lives and finding oneself in new experiences. She gathers five women of similar ages together and each month for a year they try something new – a spa, a cooking lesson, and lastly a grand holiday. Along the way they learn to live with their new lives and to love again. Interspersed with this main story are those of the days each woman lost her husband, Aikman’s discovery of new love, and information about research into grief.

Saturday Night Widows is a fantastic book with fantastic characters. It’s safe to say that if this were fiction, these women would be on book-lover’s lists everywhere and this is testament to how wonderful they are and how well Aikman writes. Rather than focusing on loss and grief, Aikman looks at the positives, the second chance at life and the chance to remake oneself – whilst grief is included, this is a book about happiness and triumph.

From what Aikman says, it appears that apart from wanting to simply conduct an experiment, Aikman may have envisaged a book from the very start; that is perhaps the reason why the memoir is insightful, helpful for those going through grief, and just simply a good book in general.

One of the most important themes of the book is the way both outsiders and the women themselves relate to widowhood and death, for example when Aikman wished to hire staff at an art museum to conduct a tour about remaking lives, the manager phoned her with ideas for art focusing on death. Aikman details how people can be overly helpful or say the wrong things, whether in innocence or because they feel the time for mourning should be over, and she explains (often in the context of her friends) why these things are bad.

Important too are the issues with blending families – two newly-single parents coming together when children are in the mix – which includes Aikman’s own issues with being a stepmother to a girl who didn’t want a stepmother. Whilst the women in the group are of similar ages their children are not, and this allows for a broad assessment of complications, and, of course, achievements.

And considering the ages of the women – the youngest 39, the oldest 57 – there was no easy acceptance of death as there might have been in old-age. With a variety of reasons for the deaths, including sudden death and suicide, the women present a detailed look at grieving and coping.

Dawn didn’t know anything about lotus blossoms when he gave her the photograph six months before he died. She asked him why, of all the glorious sights in the wild, he had chosen this image of a lotus, rooted in an inky swamp, for her. “It is because a lotus blossom will grow and perfume and flower,” he said, “even in the muck”.
Everyone made that same contented sound that Dawn had uttered before. We got it, all right. All of us – Denise, Dawn, Marcia, Lesley, Tara, me – we were blooming in the muck.

Wonderful is the way Aikman presents the women, how they leap off the pages, as colourful and positive in print as they’ve become in real-life. The presentation to the reader is a remaking in its own way as you grow to love them and know them rather well.

The one thing that might divide readers is the focus on experiments. There is quite a lot of exploration into scientific research and trials that can at times seem rather careless (the trials themselves that is, rather than Aikman’s retelling). Aikman details the women as though they are an experiment and this can make them read as children sometimes rather than friends. True, the group was an experiment of sorts, and Aikman, a reporter by trade, speaks of how she took her tape recorder to meetings and lead them in a way, but it can subtract from the friendliness and healing aspects of it all. One could say that to Aikman these women were subjects, but as you read on it is clear she is one of them just as much as any other. Yet all this is understandable because of Aikman’s job as a reporter, and, it must be said, it’s also quite a boon to the book because of the unique angle it takes and the information it offers to anyone wishing to look into it as a subject.

A great deal of credit must go to Aikman’s writing style, the way she mixes accounts of the monthly meetings with memories of the past and what is happening in the present. The book would likely not suffer if it were just focused on the meetings, because it is a strong thread as it is, but these three aspects and time periods mean that the book is so varied and detailed (even without straying from the main theme) that it is difficult not to want to keep reading. There is never a dull moment where nothing happens. If this is a prime example of Aikman’s work then the newspaper she worked at has surely lost a fabulous employee.

Saturday Night Widows has a vast appeal. Undoubtedly a book for women who have also lost their husbands, the work has a general interest aspect to it as well as being a likely candidate for a book about women that would interest a male audience, too. Filled with memorable people who you will find yourself continuing to root for beyond the last page, the book is an example of looking adversity in the eye without suggesting that grief is anything but awful to get away from. Sad, happy, contemplative, funny, and sentimental without dwelling too long (indeed this is the group’s aim), and written by a true talent with plenty of experience in the craft, Saturday Night Widows is one to look out for on any night of the week.

I received this book for review from Crown Publishers.

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None yet.

Going to the chapel and we’re going to get married.

Publisher: Harlequin
Pages: 167
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-4603-0146-3
First Published: 2012
Date Reviewed: 18th December 2012
Rating: 3.5/5

When Connor finds Megan throwing up in his Vegas hotel bathroom, he realises things aren’t quite as good as he’d hoped, but he didn’t think that Megan would have forgotten the night before. Having approached him in order to silence her friends’ goading, Megan agreed to spend the evening with him, and, when it was obvious that despite first impressions the two strangers were incredibly compatible, she’d agreed to marry him, that night. It made sense – both were disillusioned with the idea of love, but both wanted children (in fact Megan was planning to opt for artificial insemination) and Connor especially wanted a partner who would fit his busy life as the founder of a big business. But now Megan is asking for a divorce that Connor doesn’t want to agree to so instead he proposes a trial marriage. Because they’re perfect for each other, right?

Waking Up Married is a predictable and familiar story told in an often different and very fun way. Based on ideas other books have used, the novel makes for an easy and fast read whilst offering a little to think about, too.

The characters, however, may be considered a let-down. At the beginning both are strong and confident, individuals who know what they want. Neither is the sort of person the other would usually go for, their lives being so different, but Kelly is brilliant at showing the reader how well they fit together, the sort of quick friendship that is echoed by the phrase “I feel I’ve known you all my life”. And because there are no expectations of romance at this point, it works very well. Megan is a particularly interesting character of the independent-woman variety, and Connor determined but respectful. The chemistry sizzles even when there is no contact and the idea that these two people are perfect for each other practically leaps off the page. By all accounts the content that follows the first flashback ought to have been very good.

But unfortunately, Waking Up Married suffers from a major issue. Megan agrees to live with Connor, seeing that although the idea of uprooting her life for a drunken marriage is crazy, Connor is correct in his reasoning that their relationship could very well work. The book goes downhill from here as Megan seems to undergo a personality change, asking herself all the questions that would make sense in any other book but due to her obvious compatibility with Connor does not here, and deciding to show her worst face to him everyday in the hope that she will either drive him away or know that he will like her regardless. And lest it be forgotten, the word is “like” because there was never any expectation of love, only affection. Some of the things Megan does are understandable, such as hanging around in her pyjamas all day because she works at home, but others just seem silly and utterly needless. This isn’t to say that Connor is perfect, because he isn’t, but he does keep his head on straight and thinks of the positive. And if the issues were to do with either of them falling in love it would be understandable, but at this point it’s not (that’s not a spoiler as the book’s very premise and genre make it predictable). The strong independent woman becomes annoying and insecure, and it makes no sense.

There are a few themes that, due to the book’s release year, inevitably invite comparisons with Fifty Shades Of Grey, despite the lack of kink in Kelly’s book. The interesting thing is that these things are all dealt with in the way that James ought to have dealt with them in her book but didn’t. Wanting more in the relationship whilst not being threatened, the rich business owner who doesn’t make his partner feel uncomfortable – the book is at times the antithesis of last year’s best-seller, which actually gives it more power, despite the vast difference in its overall nature.

However the way the characters come to realise their true feelings is rather sudden and not quite believable. Kelly uses moments such as the character remembering how they were looking at the other in a photograph as a light bulb moment, and this doesn’t work when there had been no mention of this sort of thing previously. That love enters the story is anticipated, but the text should have demonstrated that this was happening as the narrative unfolded.

The relationships of the couple’s parents are convenient, leaving both people disillusioned, but they are at least detailed and explained enough to be plausible. What is perhaps less plausible is Megan’s plan to have a baby as soon as possible. The reader isn’t told of the characters’ ages but it could be safety assumed the biological clock isn’t ticking too fast just yet. And although Megan’s reluctance to wait for another relationship when she finds staying difficult makes sense, her incessant need to stick to the plan and go back to it the moment things with Connor do not seem to be working strikes of selfishness. Indeed this is something a secondary character refers to.

8:42pm… REED: Need you to go to Denver w me.
8:46pm… JEFF: In meeting. Give me 1 hr.
8:53pm… REED: No can do. Want wife back. Going now. Think I cn talk her into it wth sperm. […] Have wht she wants. Solllid plan. Better than hers.

However for all the issues, Waking Up Married is not a bad book. It is often hilariously funny, with lines from Connor such as the above, and an interesting if not always nice cast of secondary characters. The sex scenes are good to read because of the compatibility of the characters, even when the scenes don’t necessarily move the story forward, and it is wonderful to have a book where one person is wealthy but it doesn’t affect the relationship besides the odd mention of a charity dinner or hotel room.

If the characters weren’t so fantastic at the beginning and didn’t regain that quality by the end, this book would have admittedly been average. But because of who they are, without the silly choices, the reader may find it difficult not to continue to the conclusion. Certainly despite protests to the contrary, that is exactly what Megan discovers.

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Because the cinema is always an escape, no matter how bad the world outside.

Publisher: John Murray (Hodder & Stoughton)
Pages: 400
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-848-54031-6
First Published: 24th July 2008
Date Reviewed: 16th January 2013
Rating: 4/5

Lilly Nelly Aphrodite was sent to an orphanage after a failed adoption, and in the first years of the 20th century, living in such a place is bleak. She loves the nun who runs the orphanage, however, and makes friends with Hanne, who brought her (Hanne’s) siblings to the door following the suicide of their mother. But the orphanage will not always be around and life is destined to lose its peacefulness. And in war-torn Germany, it’s hard to get by when you have no relations to help you.

The Luminous Life Of Lilly Aphrodite (titled The Glimmer Palace in America) is the story of a girl’s struggle to live a good life and break free of the stigma of her background. Not quite the luminous life you might expect (more on this in a moment) it manages to not only show how awful the First and Second World Wars were but also puts them in the context of life in Germany. Some of the main characters are Jewish, which gives Colin the opportunity to explore the strife of Jews in a first-hand manner. The inclusion of the film industry allows her to show how life went on despite major social problems, and how the government exploited the media for their own gain.

To be sure this book isn’t, for the most part, about film, despite what the summary and title (both British and American) suggest. Lilly does become an actress but she must make it through several hardships first. Indeed one could consider the title to be ironic, looking at the realities of the backgrounds of film stars who have not come from wealthy families, and the way that Lilly’s early life is the very opposite of happy and luminous. What Lilly’s life is, however, is incredibly interesting, both as a work of fiction and for the factual content it offers the reader. In a world where the villain is not given a voice, Colin’s focus on Germany, and on its citizens, is poignant.

There is a lot of sexual content in the book; there are affairs and the odd sex scene, but what is put in the spotlight is the way adults reacted to children. Colin never implies that paedophilia was widespread, but she does imply that it happened a lot – in other words she never glosses over it. The author tells of street corners and girls dressed as women. Lilly’s friend, Hanne, enables Colin to look further, as Hanne becomes a prostitute and performer at a seedy bar. Where Lilly demonstrates liberation and bettering oneself, Hanne demonstrates what happens when people are neglected and left to fend for themselves. Colin deals with this well and never casts any character as bad unless necessary. It should be noted that there is also a lot of love, both platonic and romantic, and not all of it is mutual or appreciated. Yet behind all this is the fact of the war and the way it made sex more prominent, taboo preferences no longer hidden, and meetings for payment rife.

Given that the book focuses on Lilly’s early life, there is in fact little overall about the German film industry. For the most part, the industry is confined to the first page of each chapter and Colin accounts film premieres, the relationships between stars, and the reaction of people to the extras on screen that they recognise and denigrate for appearing in propaganda. Whilst these events relate to Lilly few times, they provide plenty of new voices to aid Colin in the description of war-torn and then Nazi Germany.

And war-torn Germany was as awful if not worse than other countries. Colin describes the starving, the effect of disease on an already weakened population, and the lengths desperate people go to obtain food. All this is contrasted with wealth, as Colin not only details the lives of those who had no reason to worry about inflation or hunger, but has some of her characters be part of that set also to the effect that the reader, who has just witnessed utter poverty, is thrown with Lilly into a world of expensive toiletries and plentiful amenities. Not only does it give you something to think about, it exposes the corruption and has the ability to truly impact the reader on the average person’s behalf.

The book may be about Lilly in name, premise, and angle, but really it is the story of a nation. It could have used more detailing about the film industry and not been quite so convenient at times, but it cannot be said that it fails to make an impact. The Luminous Life Of Lilly Aphrodite is not so much about Lilly but about anyone of the time. And it is that that makes it a winner.

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When you look with your eyes, everything seems nice. But if you look twice you can see it’s all lies¹.

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton (Penguin)
Pages: 292
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-2411-4414-5
First Published: 27th August 2012
Date Reviewed: 29th December 2012
Rating: 5/5

Leah opened the door to the desperate girl seeking money for a taxi to the hospital. Later she found out the girl was not who she seemed to be. It’s just another mistake in a long line of mistakes and disappointments for Leah, who has a good relationship with her French husband but many issues that she has not spoken about to anyone. Then there is Natalie, or Keisha, Leah’s best friend who seems to have a perfect life and a great job. And there is Felix who plans to be married and works at a garage. The characters’ stories may not always be connected, but for one element: London.

NW is a particularly experimental novel that explores the plight of those in the less wealthy suburbs of London; the ways in which they live, the ways they are stuck in their current lives, and the ways in which they try to move up in the world. The storytelling is split into three sections – experimental, regular storytelling, and a series of vignettes. Each section roughly focuses on a different character to present an overall visual of urban London.

The busy complicated writing of the experimental section mirrors the madness of London. For example there is one chapter in which Smith includes lines of songs in the middle of a description of a market, incorporating too a description of the individual people. Any confusion caused by the experimental writing (for example a lack of speech marks) is offset by the sheer artistry of the work – a chapter where words are used to form a tree, a visual painted with words, or the chapter called 37 that is about that number and is located on page 37. The vignettes, the latter section, demonstrate that one doesn’t have to include everything to create an effective and fully-described story, especially considering Smith titles each with a summary. So it is the case that just when you think the whole book is going to be ambiguous, because the experimentation goes on for a long tine, Smith turns to traditional storytelling. Indeed it could be argued that the length of the first section is a test for the reader, to see whether they trust Smith enough to go along with it, before the regular narrative takes shape in part two.

Owing to the different characters, the book does not have a linear narrative, and indeed the stories do not connect as much as the reader might assume they would do. The novel is more of a look at London and its people; the relationship between Natalie and Leah being an exercise in comparisons to show the effects of choices on a life, the different effects that “going up in the world” and staying where you were born can both have the same impact, as well as the impacts you would more commonly associate with the other – a switching of life happenings if you will.

Thus the book involves expectations. Expectations of parents for their children, unvoiced expectations, and those we place on ourselves. And what happens when expectations are met but do not satisfy? – Smith provides answers through the choices of her characters.

The story is mostly concerned with the successors of immigrants, Leah being the sole “main character” of white descent. This gives Smith the scope to view events from many angles and to highlight, if in subtext rather than words, the ordinariness of the life of the second generation.

On the way back from the chain supermarket where they shop, though it closed down the local grocer and pays slave wages, with new bags though they should take old bags, leaving with broccoli from Kenya and tomatoes from Chile and unfair coffee and sugary crap and the wrong newspaper.

You would expect such a book as the one described to be somewhat cheerless and to a certain extent that is exactly what NW is. But then the pressures of life are bound to be greater for many in a place which such a focus and determination as London has. NW shows how it can be for those living in a capital when they don’t quite fit the publicised demographic, and in doing so demonstrates how even those who want to change their status can find it difficult. Smith shows a glimpse of the way out, providing an alternative even if it is difficult or impossible to get there. Indeed it is this impossibility that makes the book poignant and at once both timeless and grounded in current affairs.

It may be different, it may be odd, it may present the important in new and sometimes baffling ways, but that is the way Smith chose to say what she wanted to say and as an overall product it works very well.

¹ “LDN” by Lily Allen.

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