I love it!! It is not one you want to put down, but have to to go about daily business. Anchee Min is a superb author and I have waited a year for this to come out. What I want to say is that, you care about Orchid as a character, you want to share her trials and tribulations, and daily life. You want to know who she is and cry when she experiences loss. She is a character that you want to respect and you can understand her choices in her running of China. Now where I want to play devil’s advocate—it is very rare for Yehonala to be respected in literature – she didn’t seem to be reknowed and a good Empress. I do want to read one of these pieces showing the other side, and I can’t wait for Anchee’s next work to come out!

I finally finished this book and have been able to get to the Last Empress. This was a book that was worth consuming, however didn’t hold my interest. I know that Mao dies, I know that Jiang Chang ends up in prison committing suicide, so why read on. Min told us all this in the beginging. I love Anchee Min as an author, love her ideas, her history and her story, but I just had a real hard time feeling for any of these characters. Jiang Chang reminded me of a person who was just so unfeeling herself, so manipulative, so why care. There were points in the story where I felt sorry for her, a cheating husband, a disappointing career etc… Overall, good, but just didn’t hold my interest.

These are nice little stories, we just read the story of Pa and Mr. Scott digging the well. I can definitely see that these were written for a younger less mature crowd with the detail it goes into for the simple things. My duaghter is enjoying it though.

I finally got far enough in this book to order Anchee Min’s book that just came out “The Last Empress!” Lan Ping the heroine of this story starts her life with a love for acting and does whatever she can to get to be in her ideal role, including marrying and living with several men. She reminds me somewhat of Undine Spragg from Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton with her strong relentlessness to get whatever she wants no matter what the cost to others. This could change, but somehow I doubt that because Lan already mentions many of the people who had wronged her earlier on in the book and how she had them offed later on in the name of communism. Very intersting, will keep reading – not the greatest, but definitely worth the read. Hopefully the Last Empress is as good as I hope

I absolutely adore Anchee Min as an author, she is one of my favorite authors of all time. This book has been on the backburner for so long with little ambition to read it. I have had it for 6 months now and actually started it back in December and am just picking it up now because I promised myself that i would read it in full before ordering the Last Empress by Anchee that came out this past week. I am enjoying the book and am picking up on a different writing technique on this one to.

We’ve only been reading on chapter a night about 4 nights a week and she has been wanting to read another more childish book, then is too tired for a second chapter. I am okay with this, as it is for her and I to spend time together and it is not like we need to finish these books rapidly fast either. I’ve been enjoying the parts about them finishing off the house and puting on a roof and the floor, not to mention, all the little animals skittering and scattering around.

This was excellent, very well played out for such a touchy subject. A strong positive twist on a potentially debilitating subject.

I just downloaded this in audio form so I hope that I can listen to this while I take walks and stuff.

We have been consistently getting through this book and are about 1/3 of the way done. A couple of things I have found interesting is that the book parralles very closely to the movie we watched a few weeks ago. I am really enjoying the wonder behind the simple life. I don’t like that pages and pages are dedicated to the explanation of things that I will never use which takes away from the story.. ie… how to build a chimney and fireplace. The wolf pack story was quite interesting and entertaining and so was the story about when they moved into their new home. Overall it is going well and we can’t wait to continue reading the series.

Okay, so I finally finished and I must say the ending the last 130 pages really made the book totatlly enjoyable. I almost didn’t want to finish reading it but I am glad that I did. What really added dimension to Annie’s journal was the fact that her friend Sammy got sick – not that this was a good thing, but it added the needed umph to the story. Unfortunately we find that Pammy did not beat her cancer in the end. I felt a little saddened about the fact that we didn’t get to hear the rest of Pammy’s story. I must say that it would be interesting for Lammott to do a follow up story to this so we can get a better idea of what Sam’s life was like after a year. Excellent job!!!