Every once in a while my mom tries to push a book on me that has a chick on the cover, or like flowers or some Thomas Kincade-y, soft-focus beach front and it will have a name like "Heaven's Orchids" or something like that. Usually I'll lie and be like "Mom, I'm already reading a book" when I really mean "Mom, I need to finish watching every video that ever existed on Hulu" and she'll smile at me and pat me on the head because I am the good, intellectual son she's always wanted.
So I was surprised when I agreed to read this and actually did and really enjoyed it and passed it on to some other people. At first I thought it was gonna be some self-discovery travel bullcrud where I am condescendingly told how amazing it is to be around poor people (as long as you stay at a 4 star hotel) and how important it is for the soul to backpack through Europe (as long as you have a lot of money to stay in a 4 star hotel when you get sick of camping in wine fields). Turns out, it wasn't (really) and it was a great read.
Basically, this is a memoir about a girl traveling to the People's Republic of China a week after it was officially opened to outsiders in the early '80s. I don't want to give away too much, but it's a pretty insane adventure, and there's a weird sense of intrigue foreshadowed throughout the book that pays off pretty well in the end, which is something that puts it above other travel memoirs and makes it a real page-turner (okay, that's the last time I use that cliche, I swear).
Give this one a shot if you feel like taking a trip through China with a pretty solid narrator. It's thoroughly entertaining and definitely worth the few days you'll spend blazing through it.
