A review by becasaur27
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh

reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book had a bit of a slow build for me, but once I got into it, I really enjoyed it. I liked the framework (I guess it is called a mosaic story?) - it was fun to visit with different characters for brief periods. A few characters made cameo appearances later in the story in someone else's POV and that was fun! The world is a future in which China has become the dominant world power and actually even taken over all or most of the US. The moon and Mars are both being settled and socialism (or communism?) is the norm. It isn't painted as great and rosy, but neither is it painted as dystopian and awful - it's just how things are. We spend time in many different settings throughout the story and each are unique and well done. I would have spent more time in the arctic and on Mars if I'd been given a choice. The story ended, but I was left still wanting to know more. How does the final endeavor end up working out for Zhang and his partners? What cool buildings do they design?

Late in the story Zhang states that he had been in love with his tutor in China and I was a bit surprised to learn this. It never seemed to me that their relationship went quite that deep. Zhang was very obviously smitten, but I didn't see enough of their relationship to have termed it love. Which it's possible that Zhang had just not lived enough life to really know love and that was as close as he'd gotten at that point.