"Spring Moon"

Spring Moon (Bette Bao Lord)

When I told my wife I was giving up on Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, she looked at the cover and asked me why I even started reading it. Looking back, I think I was vaguely remembering another novel I'd read as a teenager, and thanks to Amazon, two days later I had that very same novel in my hands. Spring Moon is everything Snow Flower isn't - authentic, readable, gripping, full of real characters I found myself rooting for. The book follows our heroine from her childhood through her life as China itself transitions from the last days of the Manchus to the early republic period and eventually up to the present day, with most of the book's focus on Spring Moon herself until the spotlight shifts to her outspoken christian daughter at the end of the book. Through it all, there's never a dull moment, and I found the mother/daughter relationship between Spring Moon and her child much more real and fleshed out than the malfunctioning robots from Snow Flower. Even if this isn't a genre you usually enjoy - and a cursory look at my other reviews would suggest this is the case for me - this is a great read that I highly recommend.

Grade: A