A review by reasie
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh
5.0
The most honest coming of age story I've ever read - this chronicles Zhang's growth from a directionless 20-year-old to the point where he takes control of his life. Maureen augments Zhang's story with a few vignettes from other lives that intersect his, including a couple on a Mars colony, a woman who races futuristic hang-gliders through the New York City landscape, and a poor girl who falls for handsome, gay Zhang.
McHugh's alternate future is realistic and interesting and Zhang's journey takes us from Manhattan to China to the Arctic Circle. The technologies are cool. The characters nuanced. Zhang's struggle with identity as a mixed-race youth in a world that derides his hispanic heritage and values his Chinese heritage is as fascinating as his struggle with concealing his homosexuality in a New York that allows but does not condone it and a China where he can be killed for "deviance".
It's a poem of a book, a quick read, and just lovely. I may have wondered why we had the story on Mars, or why the aside on kite races, but then I thought, "No, it fits." Like Zhang's Zen Engineering, the story is built out of its parts in a subtle way.
McHugh's alternate future is realistic and interesting and Zhang's journey takes us from Manhattan to China to the Arctic Circle. The technologies are cool. The characters nuanced. Zhang's struggle with identity as a mixed-race youth in a world that derides his hispanic heritage and values his Chinese heritage is as fascinating as his struggle with concealing his homosexuality in a New York that allows but does not condone it and a China where he can be killed for "deviance".
It's a poem of a book, a quick read, and just lovely. I may have wondered why we had the story on Mars, or why the aside on kite races, but then I thought, "No, it fits." Like Zhang's Zen Engineering, the story is built out of its parts in a subtle way.