Ai Mi
Paperback | Pages: 368 pages Rating: 3.58 | 1632 Users | 211 Reviews
Present Books In Pursuance Of Under the Hawthorn Tree
| Original Title: | Under the Hawthorn Tree ISBN13 9780887842917 |
| Edition Language: | English URL http://www.houseofanansi.com/Under-the-Hawthorn-Tree-P583.aspx |
Commentary As Books Under the Hawthorn Tree
Yichang municipality, Hubei province, China, early 1970s. High-school student Jingqiu is one of many educated urban youth sent to the countryside to be "re-educated" under a dictate from Chairman Mao. Jing's father is a political prisoner somewhere in China, and her mother, a former teacher branded as a "capitalist," is now reduced to menial work to support Jing and her two younger siblings.When Jing arrives with a group at Xiping village in the Yangtze River's Three Gorges region, she meets geology student Jianxin, nicknamed "Old Three," who is the son of a high-ranking military officer, but whose mother committed suicide after being branded a "rightist." Despite their disparate social backgrounds and a political atmosphere that forbids the relationship, Jingqiu and Jianxin fall desperately in love. But their budding romance is cut short by fate...
A sensitive and searing love story, Under the Hawthorn Tree is sure to become an instant classic.
Declare Of Books Under the Hawthorn Tree
| Title | : | Under the Hawthorn Tree |
| Author | : | Ai Mi |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 368 pages |
| Published | : | February 14th 2012 by House of Anansi Press (first published August 2007) |
| Categories | : | Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. Romance. Cultural. China |
Rating Of Books Under the Hawthorn Tree
Ratings: 3.58 From 1632 Users | 211 ReviewsAssess Of Books Under the Hawthorn Tree
Overall, it was a pleasure to read. I enjoyed spending time with the characters - Jingxiu, so innocent , and Sun, so perfect. It was very easy to fall in love with the leading man. It's a simple, sad, love-cum-coming of age story set against a backdrop of complicated circumstances. As a reader who is not very knowledgeable of the cultural revolution and depths of communism in China, I also appreciated gaining some insight into this part of China's history. I found the pacing slightly strange,While it wasn't the best writing, I found this book beautiful, heartfelt, realistic under the circumstances, and romantic. The central character is a teenage girl and sometimes the book gets a little teenage-y with her naivety, fear, self-doubt and sometimes egocentric behavior, but that is part of the realism in my eyes. The book was first published on a blog and is supposedly based on a real story and a real diary. Also, the fact that it is so popular, perhaps particularly in China, is
The first half of the book broke my heart, made me smile, charmed me and, at one point, gave me an anxiety attack. The second half (chapter twenty-three) gave me post-traumatic flashbacks, so i skipped a lot of pages. I flipped back and forth so I could piece together what happened. The way a major plot point happened was underwhelming. I wanted drrraaaama, aaaction, and to completely bawl. Multiple vowels added for emphasis. Instead, I sighed in disappointment and actually at one point, rolled
Perhaps one of the most disappointing factors in a reading experience is when you finish a novel that had all the potential for greatness and fell so far short. This is exactly my experience with Under the Hawthorne Tree by Ai Mi.It is difficult to point to just one reason the novel failed. It could have been the English translation that was so very uninspiring, spare, flat. There was not one inspiring passage, one beautifully turned phrase. For me it was like reading a young child's first
Perhaps one of the most romantic novels I have ever read, Ai Mi's Under the Hawthorn Tree gave me a strong story of what I always imagined true love to be, if such a thing existed. I'm not a big reader on romance novels and that goes part and parcel with my disbelief of a supposed feeling of love. I assure you this isn't my will of perpetuating masculinity by emphasizing the fact that I, 1) do not read a lot of romance novels and 2) I question the validity of what is commonly conceptualized as
It reads like a romance novel without super explicit stuff. The plot is reminiscent of soap dramas where someone withholds information and all manner of misunderstandings abound, innocent virgins unintentionally turning on men because they are innocently (and of course charmingly) blind to their own allure. I would have loved this book as a teenager - I remember idolising angsty male heroes - but I don't think it is my taste anymore. I am not writing this off as a bad book, but the reader would
I didn't actually finish this book - something that happens very rarely to me. However, I picked it up because I had thought it would be an interesting look at the difficulty of traversing "class" in what was supposed to be a society without class during China's Cultural Revolution. What I ended up reading amounted to a translation of a Christian Harlequin romance. The style was that of the old Jeanette Oke Christian romances with a saccharine sweet, gullible female character.It was first
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