North Street Book Prize 2020 Honorable Mention Judge Critique

Ying Qian's A China Story: Growing Up in Mao's Cultural Revolution is a page-turner that I could not put down. The flawless writing, coupled with the compelling story of oppression under Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution in China, kept me awake for several nights because I had to read one more page, and then another. The juxtaposition of the author's beautiful descriptions of Chinese flowers, trees, and landscapes with the horrors of mass murder and torture, mysterious disappearances, and neighbors turning in neighbors for slight or suspected offenses, makes this entry a tour de force.         

                                                                                                         - Ellen LaFleche 

This is one of the finest memoirs I have read and the author is very honest while sharing her story.   

 Plot/Idea: 10 out of 10

Originality: 10 out of 10

Prose: 10 out of 10

Character/Execution: 10 out of 10

Overall: 10.00 out of 10 

https://booklife.com/project/a-china-story-growing-up-in-mao-s-cultural-revolution-44864 

Idea/Concept:  Author Ying Qian’s memoir of her upbringing during the Cultural Revolution in China, pivots from a discovery she makes upon her return to Beijing in 2010. Qian excels at viscerally recreating Mao’s China as filtered through her childhood perceptions, while supplying readers with edifying historical context.

Prose: Qian writes with restrained, quietly perceptive prose that is as effective when describing Qian’s childhood emotions as it is in detailing the machinations of Mao’s regime.

Originality: Qian’s memoir offers a highly effective framing device, which also allows the work to stand apart from other titles that unfold during the years of the Cultural Revolution. Qian’s story—of her family, her father, and her own journey from Beijing to the United States and back—is a unique and memorable one.

Execution: Rather than writing purely about a painful and tumultuous upbringing in Mao’s China, Qian reveals her own vulnerability as an adult reluctantly peering into the past and discovering truths that had perhaps been there all along.

A woman takes us back through time in her riveting story about growing up in Mao’s Communist China. The after-effects and revelation of what really happened to her father are astounding. This story is powerful and worth reading. Honest and eye-opening. 

A beautifully and bravely written masterpiece, survivor Ying Qian’s historical account of growing up during the Mao-mandated Cultural Revolution keeps readers riveted as it tugs at the heartstrings and exposes unspeakable horrors that have been swept under the rug for far too long.