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Peony in Love
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
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Publisher's summary
For young Peony, betrothed to a suitor she has never met, these lyrics from The Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amid the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle few females have ever seen. Like the heroine in the drama, Peony is the cloistered daughter of a wealthy family, trapped like a good-luck cricket in a bamboo-and-lacquer cage. Though raised to be obedient, Peony has dreams of her own.
Peony's mother is against her daughter's attending the production: "Unmarried girls should not be seen in public". But Peony's father assures his wife that proprieties will be maintained, and that the women will watch the opera from behind a screen. Yet through its cracks, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man with hair as black as a cave and is immediately overcome with emotion.
So begins Peony's unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow as Lisa See's haunting novel, based on actual historical events, takes readers back to 17th-century China, after the Manchus seize power and the Ming dynasty is crushed.
Steeped in traditions and ritual, this story brings to life another time and place, and even the intricate realm of the afterworld, with its protocols, pathways, and stages of existence, a vividly imagined place where one's soul is divided into three, ancestors offer guidance, misdeeds are punished, and hungry ghosts wander the earth.
Immersed in the richness and magic of the Chinese vision of the afterlife, transcending even death, Peony in Love explores, beautifully, the many manifestations of love. Ultimately, Lisa See's new novel addresses universal themes: the bonds of friendship, the power of words, and the age-old desire of women to be heard.
Critic reviews
“A complex period tapestry inscribed with the age-old tragedy of love and death.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“Electrifying... a fascinating and often surprising story of women helping women, women hurting women and women misunderstanding each other.” (The Miami Herald)
“See mines an intriguing vein of Chinese history... weaving fact and fiction into a dense romantic tapestry of time and place as she meditates on the meaning of love, the necessity of self-expression and the influence of art.” (Los Angeles Times)
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Horrible pronunciation
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By: Susan Abulhawa
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Florence Grace
- By: Tracy Rees
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Florrie Buckley is an orphan living on the wind-blasted moors of Cornwall. It's a hard existence, but Florrie is content; she runs wild in the mysterious landscape. She thinks her destiny is set in stone. But when Florrie is 14, she inherits a never-imagined secret. She is related to a wealthy and notorious London family: the Graces.
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Utterly brilliant!!!
- By Maria on 07-04-16
By: Tracy Rees
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The Sisters of Versailles
- Mistresses of Versailles Series # 1
- By: Sally Christie
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 15 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Set against the lavish backdrop of the French Court in the early years of the 18th century, The Sisters of Versailles is the extraordinary tale of the five Nesle sisters - Louise, Pauline, Diane, Hortense, and Marie-Anne - four of whom became mistresses to King Louis XV. Their scandalous story is stranger than fiction but true in every shocking, amusing, and heartbreaking detail.Court intriguers are beginning to sense that young King Louis XV, after seven years of marriage, is tiring of his Polish wife.
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Best book I've listened to in ages
- By Dr. A. on 01-09-16
By: Sally Christie
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Flame Tree Road
- By: Shona Patel
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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India, 1870s. In a tiny village where society is ruled by a caste system and women are defined solely by marriage, young Biren Roy dreams of forging a new destiny. When his mother suffers the fate of widowhood - shunned by her loved ones and forced to live in solitary penance - Biren devotes his life to effecting change.
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Riveting Love Story
- By Granny on 01-15-20
By: Shona Patel
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My Beautiful Enemy
- By: Sherry Thomas
- Narrated by: Charlotte Anne Dore
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Catherine Blade's uncommon beauty and daring have taken her far in the world, but she still doesn't have the freedom to live life as she chooses. Finally given the chance to earn her independence, who should be standing in her way but the only man she's ever loved - the only person to ever betray her. Despite the scars Catherine left him, Captain Leighton Atwood has never been able to forget the mysterious girl who once so thoroughly captivated him.
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my least favorite from this author, and still good
- By Christina on 09-04-14
By: Sherry Thomas
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The Lost Wife
- A Novel
- By: Alyson Richman
- Narrated by: George Guidall, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In pre-war Prague, the dreams of two young lovers are shattered when they are separated by the Nazi invasion. Then, decades later, thousands of miles away in New York, there's an inescapable glance of recognition between two strangers. Providence is giving Lenka and Josef one more chance. From the glamorous ease of life in Prague before the Occupation, to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit, and the strength of memory.
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Love, Strength & Survival
- By Sara on 01-27-14
By: Alyson Richman
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The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
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Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
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Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
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The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
- By: Sandra Gulland
- Narrated by: Kim Handysides
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinico, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote village of her birth to the height of European elegance is long, but Josephine's fortune proves to be true.
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Performance...ugh
- By Lisa on 02-17-18
By: Sandra Gulland
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The Tiger's Daughter
- By: K Arsenault Rivera
- Narrated by: Caroline McLaughlin
- Length: 14 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hokkaran Empire has conquered every land within their bold reach - but failed to notice a lurking darkness festering within the people. Now their border walls begin to crumble, and villages fall to demons swarming out of the forests. Away on the silver steppes, the remaining tribes of nomadic Qorin retreat and protect their own, having bartered a treaty with the empire, exchanging inheritance through the dynasties. It is up to two young warriors, raised together across borders since their prophesied birth, to save the world from the encroaching demons.
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Writing format that didn't work for this book
- By kara-karina on 02-24-18
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The Bonesetter's Daughter
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan, Joan Chen
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Set in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, brilliantly presents "storytelling in its oldest and truest form".
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Exceptionally good
- By Eileen Finn on 03-25-03
By: Amy Tan
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To Taste the Wine
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Chelsea Myles earns her living as an actress with her uncle's theater troupe, performing cheap plays on the streets of London and picking the customers' pockets. Until one night, a robbery goes awry and Chelsea is left holding a purse with enough gold to buy her passage to Australia, and the chance of a fresh start. Once on board the vessel, Chelsea is intrigued by a fellow passenger, Quaid Tanner, who is returning to his vineyard in Australia. As much as Quaid admires the feisty, courageous Chelsea, circumstances seem destined to keep them apart.
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Great story but too detailed in sex scenes for me
- By Private on 09-23-15
By: Fern Michaels
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terrible reader , not very coherent book
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Great story...awful narration
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Touching, sad, and enjoyable
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Loved it!
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***EXCELLENT*** Six stars if I could !!
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terrible reader , not very coherent book
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Great story...awful narration
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Narration is terrible
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Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage to the son of her father’s business associate would secure her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man - an American sailor, a gaijin - and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations.
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DO NOT LISTEN! Decent story, HORRIBLE narration!!!
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Early in 1815, Louisa Catherine Adams and her young son left St. Petersburg in a heavy Russian carriage and set out on a difficult journey to meet her husband, John Quincy Adams, in Paris. She traveled through the snows of eastern Europe, down the Baltic coast to Prussia, across the battlefields of Germany, and into a France that was then experiencing the tumultuous events of Napoleon's return from Elba.
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Interesting Book on Mrs. Adams
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1940. Aiyi Shao is a young heiress and the owner of a formerly popular and glamorous Shanghai nightclub. Ernest Reismann is a penniless Jewish refugee driven out of Germany, an outsider searching for shelter in a city wary of strangers. He loses nearly all hope until he crosses paths with Aiyi. When she hires Ernest to play piano at her club, her defiance of custom causes a sensation. His instant fame makes Aiyi’s club once again the hottest spot in Shanghai. Soon they realize they share more than a passion for jazz - but their differences seem insurmountable....
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Soapy but fun
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Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.
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Just could NOT get past the ugliness
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The Hundred Secret Senses
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Years after her Chinese half-sister assails her with ghost stories set in the mysterious world of Yin, Olivia — a young woman from San Francisco — finds herself in China. Looking for a way to reconcile her past with dreams for her future, Olivia's American assumptions are shaken by Chinese ghosts, but she also finds reasons to hope.
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BUY THIS VERSION (Release Date 01–03-22)
- By Jessica B Hunter on 10-04-22
By: Amy Tan
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The Bonesetter's Daughter
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Overall
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Performance
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Set in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, brilliantly presents "storytelling in its oldest and truest form".
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Exceptionally good
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Saving Fish from Drowning
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Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers.
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Great book, shame about the narrator
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By: Amy Tan
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Imperial Woman
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Story
The story of Tzu Hsi is the story of the last empress in China. In this audiobook, Pearl S. Buck recreates the life of one of the most intriguing rules during a time of intense turbulence. Tzu Hsi was born into one of the lowly ranks of the Imperial dynasty. According to custom, she moved to the Forbidden City at the age of 17 to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her singular beauty and powers of manipulation quickly moved her into the position of Second Consort.
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The Last Empress and the Destruction of China
- By MarilynArms on 07-29-13
By: Pearl S. Buck
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The Kitchen God's Wife
- By: Amy Tan
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than 50 years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose all that has been concealed, when she decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths - her own and Winnie's, as well as the dreadful news that Winnie's daughter, Pearl, has been keeping from her mother.
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Holds your attention through out
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 06-08-17
By: Amy Tan
What listeners say about Peony in Love
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Christina
- 12-06-12
Intriguing and Creative Story!
Would you listen to Peony in Love again? Why?
Yes, I liked the readers voice and felt connected to the story through her words. This often makes me like a book more or less and I think she was a perfect fit for the role!
What did you like best about this story?
I thought it was really creative how she delved into history and created an imaginative story that is based on some events. I enjoyed the research that she did into the time period and found myself researching more about the history.
What does Janet Song bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I felt that she brought the book to life, and really enjoyed listening to her.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The description of the scenery in the gardens and the isolation.
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Overall
- Grist
- 10-08-09
Stick with it
I almost didn't continue with this book, because it starts so slow and predictable. But it's well worth sticking it out. The story picks up pace, leads you on an unexpected and exciting journey, and I wished it had gone on for many more chapters. Learning about the culture was also amazing. Topics usually never discussed about China. Fabulous read!
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Nana of Plants
- 02-03-23
Beautiful work
I love Lisa Lee’s working every story is so heartfelt. Thank you so much for this beautiful story and the work that went into putting it together ❤️
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Overall
- D
- 07-21-07
Eloquently written and read
Eloquently written and read I couldn't put this book down. Publishers Weekly sums the book up wonderfully: "Set in 17th-century China, See's fifth novel is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, a family saga and a work of musical and social history."
It is rich in history, tradition and superstition. A friend of mine went home to China for a funeral several years back and I didn't fully understand (until now) all the things Chinese tradition believes you must to do to ensure your loved ones a safe and peaceful passage in death. A very interesting listen! As impacting, eye opening and enjoyable as Memoirs of a Geisha.
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall
- jrzgrlxit8a
- 02-20-10
Worth Sticking It Out
After reading two of See's other novels, I found this one difficult to listen to in the beginning. But stick with it -- it's heartbreakingly beautiful. Lisa See and Janet Song are a match made in heaven. The narration, as always, brings the characters to life.
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6 people found this helpful
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- HJ
- 03-22-18
Asphyxiating
Listening to this I felt trapped. I'm a fan of historical fiction so I'm used to reading (or listening) about foot binding and the life of women in the inner chambers.
Here however there is too much focus on the ugliness and the author attempts to frame it as a good thing. It doesn't help that the MC is unlikable and really, really, REALLY stupid!
In the second part of the story she lives her favorite opera and the book kept making promises to go in that direction but in the end it never did, It just rambled about this or that. All the while framing the MC's actions as correct and anyone that opposes her as vile and wicked.
The fact that it's ALWAYS the MC's fault is glossed over. The fact that she harmed others intentionally is totally fine, because she's the MC.
This is the one book from this author I didn't like. It tries so hard to be existential but ends up as rambly and full of ugliness.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Fun Mom
- 03-01-16
Dragged a little, but got better
I didn't like this one as much as others by the author. I stopped listening for a bit, but more because of the story itself than the writing. When I got back into it, I was captivated as the story went on. It really is an amazing story and the development of the main character masterful. Understanding from the author at the end the basis for the story really made it a worthy listen.
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2 people found this helpful
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- RoamingGypsy
- 04-11-16
Wonderful
I love this book. I've listened too it many times and I am well entertained each time.
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Performance
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Story
- Rita L. Wilson
- 06-05-20
Few Surprises
I wanted to love this book. I'm a fan of Lisa See, and had high expectations for "Peony." I don't know if it was the mildly over-dramatic performance or the predictability of the plot, but I felt the book fell short of what I'd expect in a See novel. Without spoiling the plot for those who plan to read the book, I will say that there are some large plot "twists" that came as no surprise to me. The foreshadowing left little suspense, and the constant explanations interrupted the flow of the plot.
The narrator did an excellent job portraying the different characters - her change of tone and accent served to differentiate between characters and made the conversion believable. The story was interesting and the history well- researched and expertly woven into the storyline. See's descriptions of the countryside, the culture, and the political environment positively impact the reader's experience. While there are the aforementioned issues with plot predictability and perhaps a little too much drama in the reading, overall, the book was intriguing.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-01-19
Fantastic!
Lisa See is an outstanding author and Janet Song portrays the story with such emotion and realism. It puts you right there as part of the scene.
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