SuitabookChinese Cinderella
Adeline Yen Mah
- Reading
- Pause around belonging and family rejection and ask how the book presents it.
- Themes
- Belonging and family rejection: The memoir contrasts rejection within Adeline’s family with care from selected relatives and friends. The book takes a critical view of this.
- Education as determination: School achievement is presented as an important part of Adeline’s determination and identity. The book presents this favourably.
- Personal experience and cultural context: The memoir places Adeline’s personal experience alongside Chinese history and culture. The memoir uses personal experience to introduce wider context, but one account says the historical material is simplified.
- Worth knowing
- Expect emotionally heavy material, including bereavement, family rejection, deprivation, physical punishment and bullying.