Like several other reviewers I was absolutely convinced I was reading an autobiography, the whole style of the book felt absolutely authentic and 'written from within' I had to check and check again the author's own 'bio-blurb' to verify - no this wasn't autobiography, she was born in the 'States in the 50's, not born in Shanghai in the 30's. Inevitably, I was reminded to some extent of Ballard's 'Empire of the Sun', but this is written from the perspective of a small girl, and is as much about the father/daughter relationship as it is about China in the 2nd world war and beyond.

Beautiful, moving, redemptive, I found myself in a storm of tears at several points - precisely because it all seemed so real in the relating of parent/child complexities, so unlike a 'story' about this. My tears came not from 'identifying with the heroine' - I didn't - but because the 'truthfulness' - which seemed autobiographical - took me into universals, and made me experience, in a very deep way, my own bonds and debts to my parents.