The Daughter’s of Bamboo Grove follow’s twin sisters torn apart by China’s one-child policy, causing deep family trauma. They were toddlers in a poor rural village in the Hunan province. Shuangjie was able to remain however FangFang was abducted and carried off to an orphanage in exchange for money. She was then adopted by an Evangelical family from Texas and her name was changed to Esther.

It is a heartbreaking novel and I was drawn in as we uncovered their secret history. The book exposes how corruption infiltrated the adoption system, turning children into commodities and how well meaning American families were caught up in something more troubling than they realized.

But as I read I found myself frustrated. The story is packed with micro details, so much so that I struggled to find a real connection to the twins. Instead of deepening my empathy the focus on their daily routines created a kind of emotional distance. I wanted to feel the weight of their separation and shock of discovery but much of that was lost in the minutiae.

Demick’s research was thorough. She clearly poses the question of “which twin was better off” and shows both sides of the coin. Although I appreciated both, as a reader I felt the emotional impact blunted by all the factual analysis. Having been to China numerous times I found The Daughters of Bamboo Grove quite impactful as I think of the lives around me this policy has effected.

Story of twin sisters separated by China’s one-child policy, greed and corruption, with one twin being kidnapped by the Chinese government as a toddler and then adopted by an unwitting American family, and the other remaining in China with her family of origin. The one-child policy and its effects are detailed, as well as aspects of Chinese political history. The journalist author, through dogged investigation and research, locates both the Chinese and adoptive American families, and the twins are able to learn about/visit each other. Both disturbing and enlightening, this eye-opening book is worth a read.

The first third of the book lays the historical and contextual groundwork for China's One Child policy, and for the personal story that follows. The history is important, and needs to be told, but the delivery is a bit dry and dismal. It leads into the impact on individuals, families, and culture of both China and those who adopted the children in good faith, and this writing is more gripping. The author has written it as the reporter that she is.

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is an eye-opening, fascinating, and damning indictment of China’s “one child” policy that was in effect from 1979 – 2015. Journalist and author, Barbara Demick deploys one family’s tragic interaction with the system in China’s southern Hunan province to examine the social, cultural, economic, and demographic effects of the restrictive law. The “daughters” in the title are monozygotic twin girls who were separated as infants. One was adopted by a Christian evangelical family from Texas when she was a toddler while her sister remained with their birth family in China. With Demick’s connections and language skills (she spent seven years as Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times), the twins were eventually reunited in their late teens. The book takes an unflinching look at the blow back from the Christian evangelical fervor that caused many couples and individuals from the United States and Europe to “rescue” babies from China. These infants and toddlers were in reality being trafficked as part of a very lucrative international adoption nexus. Demick also explores the problems inherent in twin studies, the demographic sequelae of China’s preference for boys and the new developments possible with forensic DNA analysis.

Demick’s use of primary sources as well as her many interviews and first-hand knowledge of the Chinese countryside makes for a reliable, relatable and highly engaging reading experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove, by Barbara Demick, is an unforgettable account of China’s disastrous one-child policy told through the experience of FangFang and her twin sister Shuangjie. In well-written and documented personal accounts, Demick gives us a story of shocking government corruption and deception that resulted in families ripped apart and babies that became a commodity. Foreigners who thought they were helping save baby girls abandoned by their parents were actually adopting babies that had been kidnapped by baby-snatchers in collusion with communist party bureaucrats and government-run orphanages. The one-child policy disproportionately impacted China’s rural population who were largely illiterate, living in villages that lacked access to news, legal systems, and transportation. It was easy to get away with baby-snatching, with little or no recourse left to the victims’ families.

Demick's impeccable reporting is rich with primary sources, first-person interviews, and personal experiences. Her account doesn’t hide the moral dilemma of reuniting kidnapped children with their birth families and her sensitivity to all parties involved is ever-present. Her reporting lifts a corner of the "red curtain" that shrouds Communist China, revealing a policy that continues to negatively impact a country too proud to acknowledged it made a mistake.

I only wish the book had a glossary of the family names. As an English reader unfamiliar with Chinese language, it was hard to keep some of the names straight without a cheat sheet.