Although I was intrigued by it, I was unable to finish this book. I won't share my thoughts on it on my blog or Goodreads since they may be unfounded. Thank you for the chance to read this book!

Using the death and the traditional Chinese funeral of the mother as main theme, Hong Ying goes through the recent history of China over and over again, speaking of the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards, the various 'revolutionary' comings and goings that, in an effort to modernize the nation, have in many ways and in some periods plunged it into a kind of butchery and everyone off against each other. Through these events unfolds the story of the mother, a woman in many ways outside the box and wich the children are the first struggling to understand.
The first part of the book is quite interesting, with its reconstruction of historical events and the precise and engaging description of the the mother's character . Since the time of the mother's cremation however, the book loses strength, getting stuck in the continuous cry on the protagonist, who is none other than the author, and, frankly, at some point you can't wait for the end.
Thank AmazonCrossing and Netgalley for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a breathless book. Everything is overwrought and dramatic and high-octane. People seem to shout at each other all the time, make accusations, bring up long-buried resentments, react out of proportion – and it all became very tedious. Hong Ying is a successful writer who managed to escape her Chinese upbringing and move to the west but rushes back home when her mother is dying. This death causes her to look back on events in her own and her family’s past, but the memoir is written in a very disjointed way and I found the style very alienating. We get little chance to really connect with anyone and thus there is no emotional engagement. The book needed a good edit as a tighter structure would have made it more accessible. Not recommended – there are better books about growing up in China, and about living in China today.