Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah

Official Summary
Born in 1937 in a port city a thousand miles north of Shanghai, Adeline Yen Mah was the youngest child of an affluent Chinese family who enjoyed rare privileges during a time of political and cultural upheaval. But wealth and position could not shield Adeline from a childhood of appalling emotional abuse at the hands of a cruel and manipulative Eurasian stepmother. Determined to survive through her enduring faith in family unity, Adeline struggled for independence as she moved from Hong Kong to England and eventually to the United States to become a physician and writer.

My Two Cents

Why is it that we find stories of family members being completely awful to each other so very compelling?

This book was the Chinese version of Angela's Ashes, The Glass Castle, or I suppose even Mommie Dearest. Anyone who knows me knows that I struggle through non fiction. But this read like a novel and was very engaging, albeit pretty pathetic.

What made this book different from its counterparts listed above was not necessarily the specific incidents of abuse and neglect, but rather the setting. It takes place in China predominantly during the mid-twentieth century and chronicles the upheaval of the Nationalist party and the establishment of China as a Communist country. This is something I hate to admit I really didn't know a lot about so I found that the secondary story of a well-off capitalist family's means of thwarting the government added an interesting element to the story.