Have you heard of the Chinese Exclusion Act that was signed into law in 1882? It prohibited Chinese immigration into the United States. Did that stop immigration? No it didn’t. This book tells the fictional story of Daiyu in China about 1880 incorporating true events.

Daiyu experiences a lifetime of unfortunate circumstances in a short young life. As her situations shift she takes on new names as a cover up and the book talks about the power and meaning of names in general.

During these times there was anti-Chinese sentiment that was widespread and quite a disturbing part of our countries past. Daiyu experiences this and fears for her life.

The story ends in Idaho, which seems like an odd place, but it’s because of a sign that the authors father saw on the side of the road and investigated further. He then shared the story with the author and she built this story around it. Which I loved. The power of truth and history is evident in this book.

While I loved the history and journeys that Daiyu experienced, I never felt connected with her character.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the advanced audiobook in return for my honest review.

Lin Daiyu is only 13 when her parents vanish from their home in the countryside and she is forced to make her way to the city with only a ghost as company. The ghost, a namesake character from a Chinese folk story, will stay with her until her final days. After her parents disappearance, Lin Daiyu suffers a series of increasingly dire tragedies. She is kidnapped and imprisoned for a year, after which she is forced inside a coal barrel and trafficked to California to be sold to a brothel.

Jenny Tinghui Zhang does a wonderful job showing the impact of US policies on the lives of Chinese and Chinese-American people of the period. From the Page Act, which banned the entry of Chinese women in the US and resulted in the trafficking of Chinese Women and girls across the border, to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which ended all Chinese immigration. Both policies contributed to the ill treatment and perceptions of people of Chinese ancestry in the US- many of which remain to this day.

I wish Lin Daiyu would have had more agency throughout the novel. She rarely made a decision, and instead suffered the outcome of others' choices. Her fate was also quite grim- from destitution, to sex trafficking, racial violence, sexual assault, and ultimately lynching. She was forced to endure so much with very little happiness in between.

One of the highlights of the novel, as well as Lin Daiyu's life, was Chinese calligraphy. The protagonist learns the art before she is kidnapped in China, and it informs the way she sees the world. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Chinese characters, their meaning, and origin!

America has not always been the land of opportunity as it has been portrayed in every school history lesson. In the late 19th century, Daiyu is kidnapped from her home and China and transported to America to act as little more than a slave. What follows is the story of a courageous young woman, torn from all she’s known and loved and forced to find her way in a world that despises her because of her ethnicity. What an incredible story, Zhang presents the real stories behind the people who literally built the American West. This story will move you to tears and make you rethink American history as it is taught