Jennifer's review
status:
Read in February, 2008
This amazing book is the self-told story of a seven-year-old girl's three years in China. Amelie (the narrator never says her name, but the author's note says that the story is all true and autobiographical, and none of the names have changed) is the child of Belgian diplomats. Born in Japan, she is convinced she is Japanese until her father is posted to China, where they live for three years in the 1970s. Diplomats' families in China are mainly housed in one ghetto, and the children are almost entirely left to their own devices, outside of going to school, eating meals, and sleeping. The story describes how these children play, creating their own "war," which mirrors adult life almost exactly, but with some slight substitutions. Amelie is consumed with the war and pictures herself as a self-sacrificing, brilliant hero, until the day Elena arrives. Elena is a beautiful, indifferent Italian girl with whom Amelie is immediately transfixed. Amelie makes it her life's work to bre...more
This amazing book is the self-told story of a seven-year-old girl's three years in China. Amelie (the narrator never says her name, but the author's note says that the story is all true and autobiographical, and none of the names have changed) is the child of Belgian diplomats. Born in Japan, she is convinced she is Japanese until her father is posted to China, where they live for three years in the 1970s. Diplomats' families in China are mainly housed in one ghetto, and the children are almost entirely left to their own devices, outside of going to school, eating meals, and sleeping. The story describes how these children play, creating their own "war," which mirrors adult life almost exactly, but with some slight substitutions. Amelie is consumed with the war and pictures herself as a self-sacrificing, brilliant hero, until the day Elena arrives. Elena is a beautiful, indifferent Italian girl with whom Amelie is immediately transfixed. Amelie makes it her life's work to break Elena's indifference and, therefore, earn her love.
This is a brilliant, engrossing little book that portrays the self-centered, omniscient bliss of childhood in the setting of Communist China. China is not so much a driving force or a character in itself as a spectre in the background, tainting all of the narrator's experiences ever so slightly. Descriptions are passionate and vibrant, and the narrator embodies childhood perfectly: idealistic but without pretense or illusion, and comfortable in the belief that their little world is all that matters.
I was fascinated by this book, and loved everything from the narrator's humorous descriptions of her exploits to the unrestrained emotion and nostalgia the author so deftly maintains throughout. ...less
Loving Sabotage 
