Pages: 400
Narrator: Eugenia Low
Publisher: Headline
Released: 17th of March 2022
Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home.
With every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time.
It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin’s future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge.
Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk a
bout his childhood. How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family’s story?
Spanning continents and generations, Peach Blossom Spring is a bold and moving look at the history of modern China, told through the story of one family. It’s about the power of our past, the hope for a better future, and the haunting question: What would it mean to finally be home?
What I Have to Say
Following three generations, Meilin, Renshu and Lily, Peach Blossom Spring looks at war (both against the Japanese and the Chinese Civil War), immigration and what it means to be Chinese. Each character's perspective has a different story, starting with Meilin's journey across China and beyond with Renshu, then Renshu's path to America and finally Lily's struggle to find out who she is as a half Chinese girl growing up in America. It shows three very distinct stories that span three countries and the better half of a century.
I struggled to get used to the narrator a bit at first and at the very start of the book there were a lot of Chinese names in a very brief paragraph, which I might have kept better track of if I had been reading traditionally instead of listening, but it quickly became clear that I only needed to keep track of a few characters. As I settled into the narrators voice, I loved the way she pronounced the characters names and other Mandarin words, as Mandarin is a very beautiful language. I also loved the way they did phone conversations and the TV broadcast later in the book, made to sound as if the person was actually at the other end of the phone or on TV.
I also really loved the folk stories that were told by Meilin throughout the first few sections of the book. The title, Peach Blossom Spring, is reference to one of these stories but I think my favourite was about the man who owed a very beautiful horse that was both a blessing and a curse. The other part I really enjoyed was Lily's story. I loved her as a character and was interested to see her try to navigate her Chinese heritage. It was really interesting how much Renshu was impacted by his war torn past and his need to navigate the political climate of China and Taipei. I really felt for both characters.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who's interested in Chinese history and culture. It was a very interesting read.
My thanks go to Netgalley and Headline for providing me with a copy of this book to review.
