A book for my book club, the Red Azalea by Anchee Min came with loads of appreciation from the literary circles. I was really intrigued to read about the broken childhood of a girl in Mao's China.
A memoir that would reveal the poverty behind the extravagant curtains and the truth behind the lies of the Chinese regime of the time.
While the book did deliver on its promise, I was not mesmerised with its writing. While I wanted to be swept away into the feelings of Min of the disasters that befell herself and her family, I could just witness the situations one by one, from childhood until she leaves for the USA, without any sense of emptiness, any sense of stolen childhood -- something I thought I would find in this book.
