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Sep 19, 2011

Praj rated it:

If my mother would have read this book, firstly, she would scoff at Joy for being an ignorant fool and then latched her eyes onto me sternly saying, "See, this is what happens when you do not listen to your mother!" But then, if we do listen to our mothers all the time, how would we craft our own experiences, crash down in our mistakes and strive for success in our own astute ways. Joy was restless, enthusiastic and an erratic teen who like many other adolescent Chinese immigrants rom More...

1 comment like (23 people liked it)

Jun 16, 2011

Ellie rated it:

I'll say at the outset: I love Lisa See. I loved On Gold Mountain: The 100 Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family. The Flower Net, Shanghai Girls, Peony in Love, and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. I love her writing, her carefully researched hstory, her political commitment, and deft creation of characters, her portrayal of relationships, especially family ones.

So I was thrilled to win her soon-to-be-published new work, book:Dreams of Joy: A Novel|9500416] from the goodreads give More...

10 comments like (11 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2011

Sandra rated it:

Beautiful, beautiful book...and a bit horrifying as well. I was unaware when I started this book that it was part of a well-known series involving Pearl and Mae, two of the story's main characters. Joy is the 19 year old daughter of Chinese nationals who relocated to California at the start of China's "Cultural Revolution". The book opens with the death of Joy's father and a startling family skeleton revealed. Deeply shaken, Joy leaves the US to pursue her idea of China. Believing, as More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jun 16, 2011

Meredith rated it:

I'm thrilled that there is a sequel to Shanghai Girls! This looks good; I can't wait to read it. Just can't decide if I should buy the book or read on my Kindle!
If you have not read Shanghai Girls yet.. go get yourself a copy.

This book was so good; I'm a little bummed out that I've finished reading it.

I'm not going to recap the whole plot because so many other people have done so on their reviews. It's really about relationships within a family, and life in commun More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 14, 2011

Gwen rated it:

This is one of my favorite books of all time! Its the powerful and satisfying conclusion to "Shanghai Girls."
Exquisitely written down to the last vivid detail in this amazing journey across 1950s China and into the heart of what it means to be a family. If you were awestruck by Lisa See's "Shanghai Girls," prepare yourself for an even finer novel with "Dreams of Joy" completing the tapestry with compelling and mesmerizing redemptive power. Great sense of place More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 12, 2011

Lisa rated it:

Very well written and took many twists that I was not expecting. I learned a lot about Communist China that I found interesting and want to learn more.

7 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2012

Agatha rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2011

Lisa rated it:

Lisa See is an amazing literary voice. I have read all her work and she never disappoints. Her lyrical prose transports me. I have never been so vividly transported to China before reading her most recent work, "Dreams of Joy". Dreams of Joy tells the story of Joy, a Chinese-American at the the time of the inception of Mao's Great Leap Forward. A heartbreaking tragedy and a family secret come to light sends Joy on a journey to China to find herself and her biological father. Joy is id More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2011

Dianne rated it:

I didn't read the first book 'Shanghai Girls' beforehand, but this follow up caught me up to what was going on. I really admire Pearl, (the mom) so much! Parts of this are very graphic dealing with the events of the late 1950s in China. It was weird as someone in the book is about my same age now as they were born in 11/59 (that's if it had been a true story of course). I couldn't believe it. Chinese women really have struggled over the centuries and of course they all wanted sons. I really felt More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 01, 2012

Lisa rated it:

This picks up right where Shanghai Girls left off, so don't read this if you haven't read its predecessor. It won't make as much sense or be as meaningful otherwise. I was afraid to read this, thinking it would be another book of neverending series of disasters. Instead, this story covers an epic disaster in China's history. See did a good job of making this shameful period come through in her writing; I learned a lot. There's tragedy, horror, sadness, hope, and love, and most importantly, no cl More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 10, 2011

Komal marked it as to-read

Tuesday, May 31, 2011: AHHH! I loved, loved, LOVED "Shanghai Girls" and can't wait to read about little Pearl's adventure to find her birth father.

Saturday, June 18, 2011: Whoo hoo!! I finally got this book at the library! I'm so tempted to ditch what I'm currently reading (LA Candy by Lauren Conrad, ugh gag!!) and start this!

Saturday, June 25, 2011: I hope this one is as good as "Shanghai Girls!!!"

12 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

James rated it:

The sequel to "Shanghai Girls" this book takes up where the last book left off without alternating chapters focusing on Pearl and Joy.

This books truly is a testament to a mother's love for her child. Pearl in a way has no choice in her actions, her motivation is to simply get her daughter back disregarding any self-preservation for herself. Seeing Pearl sacrifice and endure so much it is hard not to be furious with Joy and all the imbecilic choices she makes. I understand how More...

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Jan 29, 2012

Dyana rated it:

This was an extremely well researched sequel to Shanghai Girls. It's 1957 and continues the story of May and Pearl Chin, but this time concentrates on Joy, "their" daughter. Joy discovers that May is her biological mother, but she was raised believing Pearl and Sam are her mother and father. Thinking she caused Sam's suicide she leaves Hollywood and travels to China with the idealistic desire to be part of Chairman Mao's "Great Leap Forward". She is also looking for her b More...

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Dec 04, 2011

Darcy rated it:

I have become addicted to Lisa See's books. When i read my first book by her, "Snow Flower and the SEcret Fan", i wasn't sure what i thought. It was not action packed or "exciting" like most books i usually read but the realism and the characters were endearing. The author describes chinese life so clearly that i find myself immersed in that culture. This book, "Dreams of Joy", is a sequel to "Shanghai Girls". Many events that take place are disturbing and More...

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Nov 16, 2011

Alison rated it:

Really interesting story of a mother's love for her child, a child (teen) finding out her mother is her aunt and her aunt is her mother, her father (who commits suicide) is her step-father and her real father lives in China. Joy finds this out at the same time she is learning about the Revolution (Great Leap Forward) taking place in China and supports all those efforts from the US. She becomes disillusioned with her family life, and believes her father committed suicide after the FBI visited an More...

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Nov 15, 2011

April rated it:

I read the Good Earth many years ago, and felt I had a modicum of knowledge of Chinese culture. However, much of Mao Tse Tungs's reign befuddled me. Until I read Dreams of Joy, I had a distored image of China's path from independence to Communism. But I could understand their longing for communal priority based on their mind-set of the whole being more important than the one.

Dreams of Joy follows Joy, a young adult from the United States back to China, where she wants to help build More...

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Nov 05, 2011

Betty410 rated it:

This is a sequel to Shanghai girls where the daughter, Joy, in a fit of fancy decides to find her birth father back in Communist China. With the innocence of a 19 year old she embraces her idea of the principles of communism and decides to stay in a farming commune and marries a young man of the small village. As the demands of the leaders force the farms to go against their traditios the crops fail and true hardship and famine develops. Joy has a daughter and her young husband turns against More...

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Oct 18, 2011

Karen rated it:

This is the sequel to Lisa See's "Shanghai Girls", which I also enjoyed. I think this novel is even better. The book stands on its own, but I thought it was helpful to have read "Shanghai Girls" just to have a better perspective on the character's pasts. The author does some very quick explanations of what happened in the first book, so quick in some cases it felt almost like an afterthought.

"Dreams of Joy" joins up with the lives of sisters Pearl a More...

1 comment like

Sep 22, 2011

Bob rated it:

I'm always glad when I find a book to add to my "5 Star" list. Sometimes I've been extremely disappointed with my reading choices. You know those times when one star isn't low enough. Luckily, this novel is just the opposite.
What really keeps a family together. Isn't it love? But, what kind of love is it? Passive or passionate, with a will to overcome every obstacle? How far would you go for your family? All the way to China? Let's say in 1957? Fortunately, you d More...

0 comments like

Sep 17, 2011

Talia rated it:

In Lisa See's novel, Secrets of Joy, we encounter the stubborn, uncompromising enthusiasm of a young adult who is swept by theoretical ideology. Her romantic view of China as she encounters it through her pro-China activities at an American campus do not allow any of her own family's tragic history to seep in. Joy completely shuts herself off her parents' and aunt's laments about how bad China was at the time they had fled, forcing them to take many risks for a life in freedom.

No, J More...

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Sep 16, 2011

Jenlbot rated it:

I can't understand how a book like this, that changes my understanding and I know will replay in my head, gets just three stars!

Like I said in my review for "Shanghai Girls", I like happy books about happy things. "Dreams of Joy" had more happiness in it than the first, but it also had more tragedy and gruesome visual images in it also. I know, I know...those details were essential to the story overall and I TOTALLY agree with that! But do I like those true detail More...

1 comment like

Sep 14, 2011

Lara rated it:

This is the 4th -- and my favorite -- book I've read by Lisa See. I was so happy to hear that Lisa See had written this sequel to Shanghai Girls. I had found Shanghai Girls so fascinating, but really wanted it to go on, to read about Joy's trip to find her father. This book was so much better and more fascinating than I had even expected. Not only was it fascinating about the experience of the people of China during the Cultural Revolution, but I found myself caring so much for the main charact More...

0 comments like

Aug 20, 2011

Michael rated it:

If you want to read/understand about China without it being 'helped' (all pun intended towards "The Help") along by strange, stilted "orientalist" notions of how it used to be in the old times, this would NOT be the book/series to read.

As an articulate asian (from Singapore), it pains me to read such trash passing off as historic fiction/filtered through what are very much western eyes (doesn't matter if the writer knows Amy Tan or has See as a surname) and targeted More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Kirsten rated it:

I really really liked this book! It was so nice to follow up with the Shanghai Girls! I really struggled with the first book because of their escape from Shanghai and the terrible trial that it brought to them, but in the end I really liked that book. This book, follows their story and explores the life of their daughter/niece "Joy". It begins with Joy at age 19, and what happens after her father commits suicide and how her life is transformed by the revelations of the many secrets her More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Susan rated it:

This is a continuation of the story in "Shanghai Girls" featuring sisters, Pearl and May, and their successful relocation from Shanghai to LA. In this one, their daughter, Joy, decides to run away to China to discover her heritage and to embrace Mao Tse Tung's Cultural Revolution.
I don't think this book stands alone and would best be read after "Shanghai Girls". The family history is quite complicated and makes better sense with the background. The story of a mother's More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 24, 2011

Amy added it

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

Publisher: Random House
Published Date: May 31, 2011
ISBN: 978-1400067121
Pages: 368
Genre: Historical Fiction; Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Book Summary: In her beloved New York Times bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and, most recently, Shanghai Girls, Lisa See has brilliantly illuminated the potent bonds of mother love, romantic love, and love of country. Now, in her most powerful no More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 15, 2011

Fayth rated it:

Set in the 1950's, "Dreams of Joy" continues to follow the story of Pearl and May (from Shanghai Girls) and their 19-year-old daughter, Joy. The majority of this historical fiction novel takes place in China, focusing on the "Great Leap Forward".

True to form, See's writing is amazing. Incredibly researched, I found myself learning not only about a culture new to me, but a fascinating portion of history of which I was unaware. See's ability to take you on an emotion More...

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Jul 04, 2011

Linda rated it:

This book is set during China’s Great Leap Forward, a period of devastating famine caused by the Government’s mandate of collectivization of agriculture. Far from the promise of plentitude, there is widespread starvation. See presents this as well as the philosophy of communist China and the day-to-day life in the countryside in vivid detail. Her writing style is clear and her presentation is unencumbered as she reveals the haunting anguish and despair of the people and the inadequacy of the gov More...

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Jun 24, 2011

Louise rated it:

On August 23, 1957, nineteen-year-old Joy, is a confused and upset Chinese girl. Everything she thought she knew about her birth has been a lie! The woman she thought was her mother was her aunt. Her aunt is actually her mother, and the man she loved as her father turns out not to have been her father at all and now he’s dead. Her “biological” father is an artist from Shanghai whom both her mother and aunt have loved since before Joy was born. His name is Li Zhi-ge or Z.G. Li Zhi-ge used t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 18, 2011

Kkraemer rated it:

Initially, I thought that having Joy and Pearl return to China was such an obvious device that I was disappointed. Joy was naive, judgmental, and superficial; Pearl still critical. Not a great leap forward.

Then, it got more interesting: they arrive in 1950's China and serve as sort of tour guides through the various parts of Chinese society. Vicariously, I spent time in a commune; I spent time at banquets in Shanghai. Most interesting.

Meanwhile, quietly, the characters More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)