A review by patrick_dale91
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

3.0

Certainly a very illuminating book about a subject I knew embarrassingly little about, though a bit of a slog at times. It tells the story of 3 women in a family: a grandmother, mother and daughter (who is the author herself) and through this captures the history of China in the 20th century. When it's good it's excellent, balancing the personal stories with the political and social: the spectwcular rise of communism is told well through the experiences of the author's mother and father, who were both early supporters, and blends in the wider picture. The author particularly details well the early optimism of communism and how so many of its supporters truly wanted to make a better life for many in China; she also depicts the eroding of this optimism, again showing how her family suffered and the people of China suffered through the brutal regime of Chairman Mao. However, I do feel it gets too bogged down in some of the personal stories that I feel were a bit irrelevant and occasionally boring. I think the book would have profited greatly from being a little bit less of a memoir and more a general history of China. In fact, I think a book I read recently managed to blend the personal with the historical perfectly: Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing. So, I am grateful to this book for educating me, but I think it falls ultimately at being the great book I wanted it to be.