What readers think of Pearl of China, plus links to write your own review.

Ainchee Min has utilized the genre of a historical fiction novel to bring us the story of Pearl Buck, a world renowned author and China expert. The author inserts a great deal of narration about Chinese customs in the early part of the 20th century. The story vacillates between novel and straight delivery of historical fact.
The section on the Cultural Revolution under Mao and his wife is certainly important and interesting, but ascribing behaviors to fictional character felt forced to the point where nearly all the characters have to live into their eighties and nineties in order to cover all the history.
I think this story would serve the audience better if it were written as a biography of Pearl Buck.

If the purpose of this novel is to show an enduring friendship between two disparate women, one an American, Pearl and the other, Willow, Chinese, the result is quite stunning. Every nuance of the relationship is explored through many years, even the agony they experienced when both women fell in love with the handsome poet,Hsu-Chih-mo (time for tears, readers) But,I was unimpressed with the author's descriptions of the throes of change China experienced at this time: the bloody civil war, the war with Japan and triumph of Chairman Mao and communism. My love for the people of China grounded in the books by Pearl Buck left me disappointed by her characterization of the majority of them. They came across as caricatures.
I don't think Pearl would have approved.

Pearl Buck was one of my favorite authors when I was growing up. This novel, narrated by her fictional best friend, Willow Lee, tells the story of her life and happenings in China in the 1900s. it is filled with dramatic events, but is told with such stoicism that ultimately the reader is unmoved. It's worth reading if you're interested in Pearl Buck or modern-day China, but not for the story of Willow Lee.

I was disappointed in this book because I have read other books by Min that are much better. The historical background on Pearl of China was fascinating. However, this book felt as if Min was trying to cram too much historical fact into the narrative without a compelling story to pad the facts. The characters seemed flat and the story seemed shallow. The book is very short for the topic. It's a light read and a fine story but I was hoping for a much deeper look into the life of an American girl/woman in China during troubled times.

I was very anxious to read this book as I've long been interested in Pearl Buck. I thought because the author was Chinese and a celebrated author, , I would love it. I didn't. The story was interesting, but the style of writing was not to my liking. In my opinion, it read like an essay written by a high schooler. The facts were all there, but laid out in outline form and seemingly copied from an encyclopedia. It wasn't a novel, full of life, brimming with great dialog with a page-turning pace. It was flat and factual. I could've gone to Wiki and gotten the same. Very disappointing.