Thank you to NetGalley and Avant Press for this reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.
(Note: I do not rate memoirs but because NetGalley requires a rating I have attached one to this review.)

"....the most precious things - including independent thinking and our rich cultural history - would be the first to be destroyed."

In August 1966, 14-year-old Wei Yang Chao attended a mass rally in Tiananmen Square as the Cultural Revolution was ramping up. At first, Chao was all in on the things Chairman Mao was saying and doing but over time, as he witnessed more and more violence and hypocrisy he became disillusioned with this so-called revolution. The final straw was when his parents, quiet and subtle, were beaten and accused of crimes against the Chairman just for being in the professions they were in. The family was then forced to split up and go work as peasants so that they would be able to understand fully what the revolution was about.

Wow. I learned A LOT through this memoir. I had no idea, really, what Chairman Mao and his reign of terror meant within China. I had no idea what the so-called Cultural Revolution meant and what its ramifications were. And to read about it, and learn more about it, from someone who lived it was really interesting and sobering. Memoirs like this should be heeded and serve as cautionary tales.

The Cultural Revolution was a horrible ten year assault on the four olds, that masqueraded as a huge power play by Mao. So many people were ruthlessly slaughtered, imprisoned, and maligned, due to ,ass indoctrination. Chao’s story is one that should be carefully read since simian powers exist today.

This was an interesting follow up for me, after reading "Wolf Totem."

Seeing this true story of a family battered before the children were sent to the countryside for re-education puts the tale of "Wolf Totem" in a totally new frame for me.

Recommended for those who want to know what happened IN China before Nixon went to meet Chairman Mao.

I wasn't sure what to expect of Red Fire by Wei Yang Chao. However, I started to read it as I like books about chinese culture etc. However, I found this book very touching but hard to read and get into but I carried on reading it instalments.
This book would be an excellent book for schools to learn about cultures and how other people live in another country Especially as its from the eyes of a 14 year old boy who lived in Beijing and found himself in the middle of the chaos and violence of the Cultural Revolution.
This is a strong book and is written from the eyes of a child, Wei Yang Chao tells an amazing story of how he survived this Cultural Revolution back in August 1966.

Big Thank you to NetGalley and Avant Press, and especially the author Wei Yang Chao for letting me read it and exchange for my honest review

In view of the terrible and heart-breaking events related here, I felt curiously disengaged form the author’s experiences. It may be that I have just read too many memoirs of the Cultural Revolution and this one added little to my knowledge and understanding. The author writes openly and honestly, but I found his style a little dry at times. A welcome addition, however, to the literature of this dreadful era in Chinese history.

very good account of a period of China's history that has previously been unknown to many

This is an often not talked about story of an area outside of the United States that is incredibly important in the goal to broaden the worldview of students.

Such a horrible way to have had to live life and to watch people that you know getting murdered. The book was very dry and confusing and sometimes you felt like the author was distancing himself from the writing, which is understandable based on what this family went through. I struggled to get through this book. It is a good book if you like history and can get through a dry book.

While the American Revolution is central to the Fourth of July, America also seemed to encounter a revolutionary temperament in 1968. We weren't alone; revolution also seemed to be in the air in Europe. Even the counterculture symbol The Beatles would record their first politically explicit song, "Revolution." Yet you've got to wonder how much support there is for your revolution when John Lennon writes, "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow."

Lennon's attitude may have changed later but there's little doubt the excesses of China's then two-year-old Cultural Revolution were disturbing many worldwide. Although the violence eventually receded, the Cultural Revolution -- in reality prompted by an internecine power struggle -- wouldn't really end until after Mao's death in 1976.

The extent of the damage caused China is incalculable. We've gained insight into the Cultural Revolution's economic, cultural and personal costs as, over the years, memoirs of those caught up in it have become almost a genre unto themselves. One of the most recent is Wei Yang Chao's Red Fire: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Like many of its predecessors, such as Red-Color News Soldier and Red Scarf Girl, it makes for compelling -- and stupefying -- reading.

Chao and his family moved Beijing in 1965. When the Cultural Revolution was declared the following year, he was 13. Perhaps because of that the first several chapters of Red Fire provide as much a historical perspective as a personal one. Yet Chao would witness several significant events in the transformation of the Chinese political and social landscape that year.

Among other things, he details going to see the first big-character poster. This and other posters were huge sheets of paper with revolutionary slogans that were posted in public places. The first appeared at Peking University in late May 1966. They were a method of debate dominated by what would become the Red Guard. As "an ocean" of posters saturated the country and attacked not only ideas but individuals, the Red Guard began physically attacking those they viewed as "revisionists," i.e., older generations. Public humiliation and beatings became common as the posters achieved a status where, Chao says, "they could end a career, if not a life."

On August 18, 1966, a 14-year-old Chao was among the nearly one million college and high school students who crammed into Tienanmen Square for a rally called by Mao for the "Proletariat Cultural Revolution." Red Fire reviews the rally, at which Mao endorsed the Red Guards. In so doing he essentially released millions of zealots intent on destroying what would later be called "the Four Olds": old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas.

Chao recalls tears streaming down his face and feeling ecstatic when he saw Mao after he waded into Tiananmen Square's massive crowds. He attributes those feelings and the students' fervor to the Chinese education system, which he says "fashioned China’s youth into die-hard revolutionaries.

The education we received in those years left no room for us to question what we were learning. None. Your only option was to ingest what you were given and to believe everything you were told. Anything short of total credulity marked you as being against the revolutionary cause."

Violence erupted throughout the country. Chao admits joining in on the Red Guard's chants, slogans and rituals. He also attended "struggle sessions" in which teachers and others were severely beaten, some fatally. He claims he "looked away" at the the latter and drew a line at personal violence and destruction. Yet in 1968 he would personally experience what the Red Guard was doing.

Two immutable things brought the Cultural Revolution to Chao's front door. His father, a journalist, had attended college and graduate school in the U.S. That, of course, made him a spy. His mother came from a landowning family and landowners were one of the Red Guard's "black five categories." In April 1968, his parents were subjected to a public struggle session in their own home. Chao and his sister were forced to watch as their parents were beaten and humiliated. Within a year, Chao's parents and sister were sent into the countryside for "re-education." He, meanwhile, would be sent to do farm work in a different village, where he shared a cave residence with another man.

The personal stories allow Red Fire to portray the human effects of the Cultural Revolution. This is also true when he talks of going to historic sites he loved and seeing the destruction wrought by the Red Guards' attack on their own history and culture. Chao's detailing of the birth and initial development of the Red Guard movement and the Cultural Revolution, though, seems held at more of a distance. Moreover, the story largely stops after we learn of Chao and his family returning to Beijing. Thus, readers get no perspective on how they and their nation mended the wounds and how long it may have taken. Likewise, there's no discussion of any ramifications of the Cultural Revolution on 21st century China. Despite that, this is a lucid account of a family and country caught in the throes of revolutionary fervor.

Red Fire is a first person account of what it was like to grow up in the Cultural Revolution. The bulk of this book takes place in 1966 when the author is between thirteen and fourteen, though from time to time, he evokes memories and an adult perspective from more current discussions with his family, though it also details his years of exile--aka his re-education, where he lived in a cave in an impoverished town working as a migrant farmer.

The age of the child Wei Yang Chao is the same age as Anne Frank when she went into hiding, which should be neither here nor there, but the parallels continued to haunt me throughout the book. In Wei Yang Chao's case, he was ultimately a gentle soul who had not fit in, who was smaller than others, who as a recent transplant spoke in a different manner to his peers and, thus, was one more excuse not to be understood. His parents were educated and his father, in particular, had spent many years in the US as part of his education. Evenings were spent reading together or, on occasion, the apartment blacked out so the parents could dance to whisper-soft recordings of Blue Danube.

While the author was reviled by all that was happening, he was also swept up in the movement, joining the Red Guard for a short time before turning, instead, to write for a Beijing newspaper. He was the bridge between his parents, who had been landowners in the past (a grave sin) and the party itself. So much so, he wrote statements of guilt for his mother, father, and sister when the party came for his family. Not that he believed his family was guilty of anything--only that he was most able to negotiate their punishment such that they would escape their struggle session with their lives.

It is a daunting tale, a reminder of yet another event we should never let slip from our collective memories in order to ensure it doesn't repeat itself and a reminder of how much we can hold as individuals, how much we can believe one way and not speak up for it because it lives somewhere between the realm of discomfort and the realm of fatality to do so.

The read was a relatively short one and evoked so many questions I'll continue to mull over for quite some time. It was fascinating to read different events of Tiananmen Square, ones that occurred over two decades before the infamous 1989 incident involving student-led protests. I must admit, it is a history I was only vaguely aware of and knew much more about both the incident and the Japanese war crimes that bookended the era of Mao Zedong. The writing, the reflections, and the memories were mesmerizing. I am far more likely to want to dig more into this history than had I not read this book.

Best of all were the examples of sweetness and beauty through out this terrible, terrible time. Wei Yang Chao had so much love for his family, which threaded through his entire narrative. Same for his country. Regardless of the atrocities, the China Wei Yang Chao's father loved was passed down to his son and was ever-present in describing the landmarks of places he visited and the grief he felt when those places were defaced.

In all, this was an honest, touching account of an important time in history and one not often told to a western audience. Very well done.

This was a book I read quickly - I couldn't put it down. The author's story of growing up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution grants readers a personal view from inside the storm. Too often large cultural movements are told from a distant perspective, full of statistics and devoid of humanity. This is a great addition to a reading list for anyone interested in modern Chinese history.

As others have stated, the writing style is a little basic. Compared to the horror conveyed by a book like The Aquariums of Pyongyang, Red Fire is comparably a middle school introduction to the horrors of humanity. Overall, though, a good, enjoyable book.

Copy provided by NetGalley and ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book tells the true story of someone who lived through The Cultural Revolution which began in 1966 and lasted until 1976. It is a frightening time in China's not so distant past and resulted in the complete prohibition of free thinking and creative expression. Wei Yang Chao describes how practically overnight citizens became guards against any type of activity that reflected free thought or free enterprise. He describes the cruel and humiliating way that educators and school administrators were particularly targeted. These public denunciation sessions often involved the physical beatings and sometime resulted in deaths. The author describes how his own mother was persecuted for wearing high heel shoes that reflected wealth and Western ideals. This book is an important one and an additional perspective to the critically acclaimed historic memoir, Red Scarf Girl, by Ji-Li Liang. Wei Yang Chao does a fine job of describing how he actually gets swept up into the movement as a youth, and then later comes to terms with the detrimental social impact that this movement had on China in modern times. This book is written for a mature reader and one who is particularly interested in world history, government, and politics. The style of writing is rather straight forward, but the torment and emotional toll taken on the author and the citizens of that time is well-conveyed. This book is a frightening reminder of how easily humans can be seduced into joining a movement and particularly young people. I recommend this book to young adult students who are studying this topic, perhaps in high school.

Ever wondered what it would be like to be a witness to history, to watch these watershed moments take place in front of your eyes? From what I’ve read, the answer is – terrifying. Wei Yang Chao was a witness to one of the biggest revolutions in history, especially if you go by the sheer number of people involved. He attended one rally that included over a million people, and the prospect of violence at every turn. He was lucky to survive.

This book is a first-hand account of the Cultural Revolution in China. Chao was there after the Summer Palace was destroyed. He was a witness to the rise of the Red Guard. He saw teachers and other “enemies of the state” tortured, sometimes to death. His own parents were victims of a “struggle session” as soldiers his own age smashed through the house and beat his parents.

This was an incredible but grim read. To me it was nothing but terror and abuse, as the country fell into chaos. But Chao was more caught up in the struggle. At times, he wanted to fight against the class enemies, but when people he respected became targets, he would question why this revolution had to be so violent.

I would definitely recommend this book. I knew little about this time, so I found it darkly fascinating. It’s not for everyone. It is violent. But it’s an important record of real life.

Important book for the US because it's a memoir of one man's experience in Mao's cultural revolution. The writer displays the reporter's eye for detail and chronology, and digs below the surface of just describing events (his family's struggle session, torture and humiliation of school and university officials) to enumerate the emotional and spiritual toll these acts took on their victims. I'd expected to learn more about how these events shaped the authors life afterward, but maybe that's just because I wanted to read more.

Gave up at half way point. Too dry and boring, complicated and confusing. Have to say I lost interest long before quitting.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this book. Truthfully, I didn't know much about the Chinese Cultural Revolution (CCR), going into it. I had definately heard the name Chairman Mao, but my knowledge from past history lessons failed me, and I didn't know much more than he was a bad guy (I know, that's sad).

The first chapter of the book, in which the author starts to explain the violence and humiliation that his family experienced started to give me an idea of what to expect, though. I do know alot about traditional Asian culture and how important family honor is, so I understood the significance of the public humiliation they suffered and how devestating it must have been.

To give a little background, in case you are as clueless as I was before I read this book about the CCR: The CCR started in May of 1966. It was a political movement inaugurated by Mao Zedong, also known as Chairman Mao. Mao grew up a peasant and "organized other peasants to eventually bring revolution to all of China, forcing his great rival Chiang Kai-shek to flee to Taiwan."

Chairman Mao was worried that China would fall victim to what then President, Nixon, called a "peaceful evolution from socialism back to capitalism," something he believed the Soviet Union had already fallen victim to and he would not allow China to follow suit. However, Liu Shaoqi, the country's president, had very different ideas from Mao, who believed that China should "transform itself into a powerful nation state," which would require a cultural revolution.

Mao made his conflict with Liu Shaoqi known publicly in 1966, writing and publishing a public notice, denouncing the Party and referring to Shaoqi as "people like Nikita Khrushchev, referring to Stalins successor and leader of the Soviet Union. Even though The May Sixteenth notice became the framework for the CCR, it was met with resistance at first and most high-level officials remained loyal to Li Shaoqi, which made Mao furious. For the first time since becoming the Communist Party's leader, his "authority seemed less than absolute." In 1959, Mao had given temporary leadership to Liu Shaoqi and by 1966, many officials backed Shaoqi, and he "had become powerful enough to challenge Mao's authority."

Although Mao never actually feared a power struggle, he knew that the situation must be remedied. The author explains:
"From earliest childhood, I was taught that the West - America especially - was on the verge of extinction. America was dying. No, it was already dead, destroyed by greed and decadence."

The author also explains how in school, at the beginning of the CCR, they were asked to list things that were "Yes" (good for the State) and "No" (Bourgeois inclinations). Under the "No" category, they listed things like nylon stockings, stylish hairstyles, and for some reason, a pork dish that one of his class mates enjoyed, so his mother packed it for him to bring to school. The author described that classmate as the most innocent victim of exercise.

During the CCR, Mao was equivalent to a god and a billion copies of a book of his quotes was published, making it one of the most widely printed books ever, and during the CCR, it was almost illegal not to own and carry a copy. One of the first pages of this book shows a picture of the author and his two siblings, each holding a copy of the little red book.

I also was not aware of the existence of the Red Guards and was shocked at how young they were. The author was present a the same site, the day they first met and were officially established. The Red Guard started as a group of middle schoolers, ready to fight to the death to defend Mao and "Mao thought," and anyone "threatening the revolution."

I also knew nothing about the Big-Character-Posters (BCP) that were so prevalent during this time. Even though paper was so scarce that even obtaining toilet paper was rare in some places ,the BCPs were plastered EVERYWHERE - on the outside and inside of every building, including government offices, businesses, schools, and even outside of the city, in the country.

The author explains that they were everywhere inside his school, in classes, in the hallways, in the bathrooms, etc. There were so many what when there was no more space, people simply posted new ones on top of previously posted BCPs. These BCPs ruined lives and caused tradgedy in the 20 odd years the phenomena lasted (the CCR lasted a decade). The author explains:
"In some respects, BCPs constituted the first real opportunity for free expression within the country's legal system. They were considered 'the best route to a people's democracy' and 'a very effective weapon of a new generation.'"

They were anywhere and everywhere, all different colors and sizes, and could consist of anything the writer wanted to express. They could consist of slogans, poems, a passage from a book, an essay or even a cartoon, but even though the format varied widely, the content always aimed to shock.

No one was spared; anyone's dignity and privacy could be violated. Taking a person's remarks out of context, grossly exaggerating their actions - even slander or libel didn't raise eyebrows so long as the writer claimed 'a revolutionary stance' or 'a revolutionary purpose.' The only risk, should you have engaged in this practice, was that someone would retaliate by writing a poster to take you down too.

Here are a few pictures I found online (not from the book):

Image result for Big-Character-Posters Image result for Big-Character-PostersImage result for Big-Character-Posters

The author actually saw the first widely publicized BCP, two days after it was posted, and witnessed its author, a woman in her 40's, arguing with a group of men in front of it at Peking University, during his first trip to the campus. Mao had the message from the BCP broadcasted everywhere, which brought about more BCPs, with people arguing over who was for Mao and the revolution and who was against it, which fed into Mao's strategy to create disorder and achieve "great order from great disorder under the heavens."

This incited violence all over campuses in China, with Peking University being a "forerunner in many respects."

"As the huge and almost uncontrolled political energy inspired by the BCPs grew, revolutionary fever spread through teh whole University campus. Students began to torture their instructors, which only spurred more violence at other campuses across the country."

The author was unfortunately part of the first case. He didn't understand everything that was happening and he went to Peking University to see what was happening, to try to better understand but still didn't understand why professors were being called "monsters" and "devils," words he had only heard in stories and fairy tales.

Even at his middle school, students created a BCP titled "Fight to the Death for the Proletarian Dictatporship - Mao Thought" and posted it in a large classroom. It targeted the school administration, which furthered the agenda of the Red Guards, whose oldest members were 19, and the youngest only 13 years old.

I couldn't believe some of the things I read in this book, and I couldn't believe that I had never heard about any of this before! Children from every school, incited by Mao and his call for a cultural revolution, humiliated, beat and even killed many of their instructors and other school staff and faculty! It got so bad that many instructors committed suicide to avoid more violence.

The one thing I kept thinking over and over throughout this book, was how these were children - just middle schoolers and some high school age - carrying out the "revolution." Children who dragged their teachers out of classrooms and dragged people out of their houses and businesses - beating and sometimes killing them, for sometimes something as small as the name of their restaurant, their family's background, even the clothes and shoes they wore, or the way they styled their hair! And more incredulous: the government and law enforcement ENCOURAGED this!

I kept thinking about how I've been seeing/reading about kids today taunting people that don't look like them. We've all heard about the violence that has been happening all over the country, after the election, but what's going on in schools has been talked about less. Like the stories in this article: Kids Quoting Trump to Bully their Classmates and Teachers don't know what to do about it.

After a school assembly at a school that is 1/3 Latino, in which dozens of students chanted "Build that wall!" the principal talked with some of the kids and found that most had no idea what it meant. They were simply joining in, because others next to them were. Similarly, the author explains that he initially wanted to and later felt pressure to participate in the CCR with his peers.

There are tons of articles online, telling of the similar incidents all across the country, fueled by the so-called "president" and the things they hear from their parents. Although I don't foresee anyone plastering Trump's tweets up on the sides of buildings across the country, they might as well be, with all of the media coverage they get. Reading this book made me think long and hard about the similarities with the things that are happening on our country today, and what if all of the children who are chanting about building walls were to decide that their teachers are part of the problem. I have no doubt in my mind that Trump would support them.

I can't fathom what the author and his family experienced. They were treated horribly for reasons that would have never occurred to them as being "bad" or "traitorous." This book, like many other autobiographies by people who have survived such trauma, strengthens my faith in humanity and the power of hope among even the most hopeless.

I loved the ending! Although I was expecting... well, I don't exactly know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this ending!

I love how the author's life was changed by such an unexpected turn of events.

I am amazed at the things that happened during the CCR and am in awe of the author and his achievements, despite everything that his family went through. However, I cannot help relating things that I have been seeing/hearing/reading about what is happening today. While I know that the words/tweets of the so-called "president" would never be considered to be up there with the bible, there are too many people taking our not-so-great leader's words way too seriously.

Just like the holocaust, the Japanese internment camps after Pearl Harbor, and other tragedies, I think it is more important, now more than ever, for people to learn about the tragedies of the past so that we don't relive them in the future.

I really enjoyed this book. The author's writing was extraordinary, and the resilience and resolve he showed at such a young age is admirable. For most, it would have been easier to take the hand he was dealt and live the life that was forced upon him. Instead, he found a way to educate himself and lived to write this great book that taught me so much about Chinese history!

I received this book for free from the publishers, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Growing up during the heart of the Cultural Revolution, Wei Yang struggles to identify what is right and what is wrong. Brainwashed in school to blindly worship Chairman Mao, he is all for the revolution, but when his own parents become targets accused of collecting rent and spying for the U.S., Wei Yang starts to realize the rampant violence may not be necessary.
Good story, being able to see what it was like growing up during such a tumultuous time in Chinese history, however the writing was very simple and a tad repetitive.

When writing about a great event from the past an historian will endeavour to place the event in its historical, political and cultural context giving the reader an understanding as why it took place and the course that it took. But to supplement this understanding there is nothing like reading about such an event from someone who was actually there at the time and lived and breathed its consequences. Such a memoir has been written by Wei Yang Chao in his book Red Fire which is a chilling first hand account of his experience of the Cultural Revolution that took place fifty years ago as seen from a student's perspective.

This can be at times very painful reading as he was witness to public humiliation, torture and prolonged harassment of public officials including members of his family and his professors and teachers for supposed offences against the revolution's stated goal of preserving 'true' Communist ideology in the country. It shows how the mania and frenzy swept the country and the all pervasive cult like status that Mao had at that time. Like more recent events cultural sites of antiquities were targeted and destroyed.

Eventually he was forcibly separated from his family and displaced to a remote region, this is an account of what happens when unreason and ideology combine to attempt to shatter the human spirit. Gripping, thought provoking and a warning from the past, I would certainly recommend this book.

It feels so authentic as if you were right in the middle of the events. This is a very good history book. I enjoyed a lot!

What is it like in the eye of a storm? What happens when you get sucked into that storm? This book gives you that view of the Cultural Revolution. Wei Yang Chao was there for the beginning. He helped chronicle it as a school reporter. He was part of it as a Red Guard. Then he saw it turn ugly. Eventually, he felt it’s fury as it engulfed him and his family.
This book is an incredibly hard book to read; there is so much violence and heartbreak. But it isn’t just a memoir. He takes the time to explain the political maneuverings that destroyed so many lives. It’s not just a political history either, but a good balance of both. I understand that time so much better now.
It is well written and very interesting. There are a few swear words, but for the subject, it is very clean. I would recommend it to anyone trying to understand the Cultural Revolution.
I received this as a free ARC from NetGalley and Avant Press. These are my honest opinions.