Falling Leaves Return to Their Roots: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter Book

As a lover of chinese novels this book gets top marks from me.

This is the story of the author, Adeline, growing up as an unwanted chinese daughter. Adeline is thought to be bad luck as her mother died following her birth. Ignored by her father, despised by her young stepmother, bullied by her siblings, Adelines childhood is one of sadness and deprivation.

She forms a close relationship with her grandfather Yeye and Aunt Baba from an early age and only receives kindness from these two people.

This family story is told against the backdrop of communist China, bringing Adelines plight in to a social context. As I have read many chinese novels I already had an understanding of Chinese history during this period so the brief social descriptions were enough for me. However, I would recommend starting with another novel, such as Wild swans, before reading this one to gain a much broader social understanding of communist China under Chairman Mao.

The story follows Adeline up to her adulthood and her stepmothers demise.

Throughout the book I was hoping for recognition and respect for Adeline from her family but sadly this is a true story and does not really happen.

This book will have you wanting to cry and cheer at different points.

If you love novels by chinese authors then do pick this book up for a read. You will fall in love with the main character and feel like your fighting the issues with her.

Adeline Yen Mah's childhood in China during the civil war was a time of fear, isolation and humiliation. The cause of this was not political upheaval but systematic emotional and physical abuse by her step-mother and siblings, and rejection by her father.