Book Review: Daughters for a Time by Jennifer Handford

Title: Daughters for a Time
Author: Jennifer Handford
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Audible
This book would be rated: PG-13 for adult situations, language, unsexy sex

More than anything else, Helen Francis wants to be a mother. She lost her own mother to ovarian cancer when was a teenager (and her father abandoned Helen and her sister, Claire, shortly after that), and she thinks that more than her marriage or her successful career as a pastry chef, becoming a mother will show that she has overcome the challenges of her early life. The only problem? She can't have a baby. Helen has tried everything, and her husband Tim, seems eager to move on to the next logical step-- adopting a baby. But it's not that easy for Helen, who feels like she's giving up on herself if she chooses adoption.

Eventually, Helen and Tim adopt a baby girl, Samantha, from China. Helen believes that now her life will be perfect. She and Claire can raise their daughters together, and they will both have the strong families they were deprived as children. However, Claire is soon diagnosed with the same cancer that killed their mother, and Helen has to readjust her life's path.

I listened to this book on audio, and it was eminently listenable. I found myself listening in the shower and the car and everywhere else I went. But that doesn't mean I necessarily liked it. As an adoptive mom, I really enjoy reading stories about adoption, and particularly like reading stories where the motivations to adopt are different from my own, sort of nebulous ones. For me, choosing to adopt a child didn't have the same emotional implications as it has for many families who turn to adoption after experiencing infertility. So I found that part of the story quite interesting. It was obvious to me that Handford, or someone she knows well, adopted from China sometime before 2007. The problem for me is that the adoption portion of the book seemed to be set in 2011 or 2012, and by then the process was very different. So the nitpicky side of me wanted her to get that right. But she did a great job capturing the details, the smells, and the sights of China. I could even pinpoint the hotel she stayed in when she was in Guangzhou (Holiday Inn Shifu?). After Helen, Tim, and Samantha return from China, I wanted the story to go do different places than it did. I loved the side-story of her reconciliation with her father, but I hated that Claire soon got sick with incurable cancer. Even though I knew it was coming, it felt manipulative. And while I enjoyed the way Handford handled the struggle the family went through in the ensuing year, I felt like the final events of the story (which I won't give away) were implausible based on some of the actions the characters took early in the novel. Overall, it was a book I'm glad I listened to, and one that I enjoyed, but I was left with a lingering feeling of emotional manipulation, like I've felt after reading Jodi Picoult novels.

Book Review: The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan

Title: The Valley of Amazement
Author: Amy Tan
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Kindle
This book would be rated: R, for descriptions of courtesan life

Violet grows up as the spoiled and petted half-Chinese daughter of the owner of a courtesan house in Shanghai. When she's fourteen, her mother decides to return home to San Francisco, and due to a number of double-crosses and shady deals, Violet is left behind in Shanghai, where she soon becomes a courtesan herself. The Valley of Amazement is, like many Amy Tan novels, a story of struggle, mother-daughter relationships, and, eventually, a sense of peace.

I read so many books that they tend to blend together after a while. I've noticed that Ed, who probably reads a couple dozen books a year, has a much easier time remembering plot lines than I do. But I must have read Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha at an impressionable time in my life, because it's a book that I remember really well. And as I was reading The Valley of Amazement, I couldn't get over how similar the books are. Yes, I do realize that MoaG takes place in Japan, while VoA takes place in China, but the time periods are relatively similar, and the exacting descriptions of courtesan life are almost identical, including the description of the sale of the girls' virginity. However, I much preferred MoaG. The Valley of Amazement is fine in and of itself, but it doesn't hold up well in the inevitable comparison.

Step eleven!

We've entered the two-week wait. In almost all of the steps of the adoption process, the timetable is variable. It can take two months (like this time) or six months (like last time) to complete a home study. It can take a few days (like 21) or a lot of days (like 160) to get a Letter of Approval from the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA). But step eleven on the chart I posted a few weeks ago always takes ten business days. Step eleven is pre-approval for Eli's immigrant visa, and it is being processed at the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China (which is also where we will spend the last half of our trip). Our paperwork was dropped off on Wednesday, January 23rd and will be picked up on Wednesday, February 6th and overnighted to the CCCWA in Beijing that day (which is step 12). We will be waiting for our official travel approval (which is issued from the CCCWA) when Chinese New Year starts on February 9th. While the Article 5 wait is always 10 business days, the Travel Approval wait is highly variable. I've heard of people getting theirs in 3-4 days, and others waiting a month. Last time we waited 16 days. This time we know that the CCCWA will be closed for a week for Chinese New Year, so I'm expecting it to take about three weeks. If the approval isn't here by March 1st, I may have to place another moratorium on all friend calls until I get the call from my agency. We hope to leave March 13th or 20th (or maybe sooner if we're blessed with a quick travel approval) but we won't know any more than we know right now until we get the all-important phone call.

Book Review: Kosher Chinese by Michael Levy

Title: Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China's Other Billion
Author: Michael Levy
Source: Personal Copy
This book would be rated: PG
Enjoyment Rating: ****

With only a couple of months until we head back to China, I've started reading books about China again. I read Michael Levy's memoir Kosher Chinese, detailing his two years at Guizhou University with the Peace Corps, in less than a day. Levy's voice is engaging, the material is entertaining, and the book is very readable. He focuses not on the coastal cities of China, which he thinks are quite westernized, but on the smaller, interior places, where the worldview is quite different from our own. He tells entertaining stories, eats a lot of scary food, and does a great job conveying the idea of guanxi-- the importance of relationships and connections-- an "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" kind of deal.

I spent my time in China in the places Levy would call the "westernized coastal cities" but still found it to be very different (especially some places in Nanjing) than the world I'm used to at home. So I kept having to remind myself that "my" China was still a lot more familiar to me than Levy's China would have been.

Book Review: Red Thread Sisters by Carole Antoinette Peacock

Title: Red Thread Sisters
Author: Carole Antoinette Peacock
Enjoyment Rating: ****
This book would be rated: G
Source: Personal copy
Books I've read this year: 129

When Wen was eleven, it was finally her turn to be adopted. Her new family traveled all the way from Boston to China to come get her. It should have been the happiest day of her life, and probably would have been if it weren't for the knowledge that she was leaving her best friend, Shu Ling, behind at the orphanage.

Carole Antoinette Peacock's new novel, Red Thread Sisters, manages to fictionalize the experience of an older adoptee from China while staying (mostly) true to the timelines and facts of how the adoption process works. When Wen arrives in Boston, she starts on a mission, first to convince her new family that they should adopt Shu Ling, and then to make sure that she makes good on her promise to bring her best friend to America before she turns fourteen and "ages out" of adoption eligibility.

Peacock's writing is good and she has clearly done her research. After I finished the book, I gave it to my ten-year-old to read, and she was a little bit disappointed that Shu Ling and Wen did not end up as "real sisters." But I think that was fitting-- it felt more realistic and less like a fairy tale the way Peacock wrote the story. All in all, I think it's a great addition to YA books in general and to books about adoption in particular. 

Book Review: Wild Swans by Jung Chang

Title: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
Author: Jung Chang
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Personal Copy
Books I've read this year: 102

This book came highly recommended. So highly recommended that after letting it fall into the part of my nightstand pile that I never quite manage to get to, I plucked it out and forced myself to read. Last year at this time, all I wanted to read was books about China. Now that we're preparing to bring another kid home, reading books about China feels more like eating my vegetables. That's probably because I read so many adorable, fun memoirs last year, which leaves me to read things like histories, which are important and necessary reading, but I don't necessarily enjoy them. Wild Swans tells the story of Jung Chang, born in the early 1950s in China to parents who were provincial leaders in the Communist Party, as well as her mother and grandmother.

The story itself is remarkable-- the women in this family experienced everything from foot binding and concubinage, to Civil War, World War, the Great Leap Forward, famine, imprisonment, work camps, and finally, moving to the west for higher education. The family's story is really worth hearing, because it humanizes the big events of the 20th century and makes them painfully real.

However, the narrative style made the book difficult to read. The author constantly refers to her mother as "my mother" instead of by name, which made it hard to keep track of who was who. I also found myself skimming toward the end, possibly because I had reached a saturation point with the events of the story. But it's still an important story to read and one that definitely broadened my understanding of Chinese history. 

Why

* Because he needs a family and a home.
* Because sometimes life takes you by surprise.
* Because Bryce and Isaac were feeling outnumbered.
* Because we're already that conspicuous family-- both big and multicultural. One more won't change that.
* Because we left a "normal" size family behind two kids ago.
* Because there's one empty seat in our minivan.
* Because I am a sucker for paperwork.
* Because we already need two hotel rooms when we go on vacation.
* Because ten fingers and ten toes are totally overrated.
* Because we didn't know when we adopted Rose that abandoned little boys wait much longer for families than little girls do.
* Because we have an empty bedroom.
* Because our transition with Rose has been so much easier than we expected.
* Because we're a little bit sadomasochistic. 
* Because I have a thing for even numbers.
* Because it's not much fun to be the caboose.
* Because no one else understands what it's like to be Chinese and adopted like someone else who is Chinese and adopted.
* Because I've loved the name Elias since it was in our top three baby boy names, way back in 1999 (the other two? Bryce and Isaac, of course).
* Because I have this great idea for a Brady Bunch Christmas card for 2013.
* Because we already have a wonderful orthopedic surgeon, thanks to Isaac, and an excellent physical therapist, thanks to Rose.
* Because we embrace chaos around here.
* Because Eli is living, not just in the same country, but in the very same province, in the very same city, in the very same orphanage, in the very same room where Rose spent her first eleven months.
* Because we know where to find both McDonalds and Starbucks in Nanjing and Guangzhou.
* Because we didn't learn how to wait patiently last time around-- we need a refresher.
* Because our baby photo shrine in the kitchen was feeling lonely.
* Because we need Eli at least as much as he needs us.

Our one year anniversary of our match with Rose feels like the perfect time to announce what some of you already know-- sometime this spring, we'll be headed back to Xuzhou, China to bring home Elias Leman. Eli will turn one in October, which means that he and Rose will be virtual twins! As a mama who always sighed with relief when just one baby showed up on an ultrasound, this is a pretty big leap of faith for me and the rest of the family.

Book Review: Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost

Title: Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation
Author: J. Maarten Troost
Enjoyment Rating: 7/10
Referral: Someone on one of the adoption boards told me about it
Source: Used copy from Amazon
Books I've read this year: 14

If you've been reading the blog over the last year, you know that I've been doing a LOT of reading about adoption and China. All told, I'd say I've probably read 10 books about China and 20 about adoption (with some overlap, to be sure). When I undertake anything significant in my life, the first thing I do to prepare is to read up on it.

Ed, on the other hand, reads to relax and to prepare for exams. Since there are no adoption exams (other than physical exams, which we've already passed), he hasn't done much any reading at all about China or adoption. I figure I've read enough for both of us and he never read What to Expect When You're Expecting either. But since he's the one up at night worrying about our trip, I thought it would be a good idea for him to read a little bit about what he might experience on our travels to Nanjing and Guangzhou. Enter Lost on Planet China. Judging from the fact that Troost's previous book was called The Sex Lives of Cannibals, I figured that Lost on Planet China was a book Ed might dig. It was sure to be entertaining, at least.

Lost on Planet China is entertaining. Troost leaves his wife and two young sons at home in California and takes off for six months on a tour through "the world's most mystifying nation." He doesn't just take a tram up the great wall and then retreat to the relative comforts of Shanghai or Hong Kong, nooooo, he goes to Inner Mongolia and Tibet. He eats everything (and doesn't seem to suffer any ill-effects). He stays in hotels that most foreign travelers wouldn't dream of spending the night in, and he learns to bargain like a pro.

While Lost on Planet China is thoroughly entertaining, after reading it I had a little bit more trepidation about our upcoming journey than I did when I was blissfully ignorant about what would greet us on the other side of the world. I knew about the smoking, the crazy driving, the spitting, and the "massages" but I didn't realize how living in China for an extended period of time would really change a person like it did Troost. Two weeks probably isn't long enough for it to happen. But I still haven't given the book to Ed to read. Maybe I'll hand it over when we're on the plane and it's too late to back out.

Book Review: Pretty Woman Spitting by Leanna Adams

Title: Pretty Woman Spitting: An American's Travels in China
Author: Leanna Adams
Enjoyment Rating: 5/10
Referral: Someone on RQ (the adoption board I'm addicted to) told me about it
Source: Kindle for iPad
Books I've read this year: 13

I've been through certain life experiences, whether they were living abroad in college, waiting for a missionary, giving birth. raising children, adoption, where I've thought, "Hey, maybe I should write a book about that." In Pretty Woman Spitting, Leanna Adams does just that. Several years ago, when Adams was in her mid-twenties and not quite sure what she wanted to do with her life, she decided to spend a year teaching English in Wuhu, China (about an hour from Nanjing, which is where we're going to get Rose). Adams does a great job capturing the cultural dissonance she feels when she arrives in China. I'll admit that I'm a little bit nervous about the trip (not as nervous as Eddie, though), and it's the things about Chinese culture like spitting and squatty potties and staring that have me packing my suitcase with kleenex, hand sanitizer, baseball caps, and sunglasses. But the book has no narrative arc (it's a year, she gets to the end of it), and there's a distracting amount of punctuation/grammatical problems. Adams is funny, and the book is entertaining, but there are other books out there that tell a similar story and actually have a story to tell that's more than a travelogue.