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A review by kathryn08
The Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning
3.0
Thanks to Allen & Unwin for the ARC copy of this that was sent to me.
Unfortunately I struggled with this one. It took me almost a month to read - I picked it up, put it down, and reluctantly picked it back up again.
I’m not really sure what the problem was - the story was written in 2 periods, the WWII period and present day, going back to look at what happened to the grandmother of the present day period during the war period when she was a young woman. I normally like those dual timeline stories, but it didn’t work for me this time.
I’m not sure whether it was perhaps because I found it hard to get a handle on some of the characters and maybe found it difficult to relate to them. The grandmother character, Romy, was Austrian, moved to Shanghai as a refugee and then moved to Australia as a refugee again after the war but had adopted a lot of Asian customs and traditions during her time in Shanghai. But this confused me a little initially - I had to keep reminding myself what nationality she was and then had to work out why she was using Asian medicine, food etc when she was Austrian!
I’m still glad I persevered and read it, because it did improve toward the end, but it was hard work to get there. But perhaps it was just a case of wrong book, wrong time for me!
Unfortunately I struggled with this one. It took me almost a month to read - I picked it up, put it down, and reluctantly picked it back up again.
I’m not really sure what the problem was - the story was written in 2 periods, the WWII period and present day, going back to look at what happened to the grandmother of the present day period during the war period when she was a young woman. I normally like those dual timeline stories, but it didn’t work for me this time.
I’m not sure whether it was perhaps because I found it hard to get a handle on some of the characters and maybe found it difficult to relate to them. The grandmother character, Romy, was Austrian, moved to Shanghai as a refugee and then moved to Australia as a refugee again after the war but had adopted a lot of Asian customs and traditions during her time in Shanghai. But this confused me a little initially - I had to keep reminding myself what nationality she was and then had to work out why she was using Asian medicine, food etc when she was Austrian!
I’m still glad I persevered and read it, because it did improve toward the end, but it was hard work to get there. But perhaps it was just a case of wrong book, wrong time for me!