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Summary: Excellent story!
Review: I am studying Asian history in college and after I read "Wild Swans", I was looking for a nonfiction book that was a "different" side of growing up in China during the same time period. This book is spectacular! I could not put it down. It deserves rave reviews. I highly encourage anyone interested in stories about life in China to read this book!
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Summary: Confusing
Review: If you are someone who gets bored, confused, or lost easily, DO NOT READ THIS!! I had to resd this for school, wich I wasn't happy about to begin with. What didn't make it easy to understand was that it jumped around so much. In one chapter her dad is meeting her mom, then in the next is about her dads youth. I seriously do not recommend this book.
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Summary: The agonizing story of a dysfunctional Chinese family.
Review: Adeline Yen Mah, in "Falling Leaves," accomplishes many things. She has written a searingly honest memoir of her miserable childhood in China. In addition, she provides a colorful and lively description of the customs, history and social upheaval of China from roughly the late 1800's until the 1970's. Adeline was the daughter of a prosperous businessman, Joseph Yen, who was happily married to a woman he adored. He had five children, the youngest of whom, Adeline, is the author of this book. Tragically, Adeline's mother died of an infection shortly after she was born, and Adeline never knew her mother. To compound the tragedy, Adeline's father soon married a woman so cruel and so inhuman that she was comparable to the stereotype of the "wicked stepmother" in the story of Cinderella. "Niang," as Jeanne Prosperi Yen was called by her stepchildren, was a "control freak". She manipulated her husband and children; she verbally and physically abused the children who were "out of favor" with her; and she used money to control the family dynamics even after her death. Adeline's story is how she managed to grow up whole in spite of a loveless childhood. She turned for solace most of all to her beloved "Aunt Baba," who loved Adeline unconditionally and was truly proud of her, and Adeline took great delight in doing schoolwork, which brought her great intellectual and emotional satisfaction. Mah brings alive a large cast of characters, stoically recounting many tales of deep sorrow that must have wounded her greatly. She makes the streets of China come alive with her vivid descriptions of the sights and sounds of such cities as Shanghai, Tianjin and Hong Kong. "Falling Leaves" is an intensely psychological and personal memoir. It must have been difficult for Adeline Yen Mah to bare her soul as she did. The result is an unforgettable story of a terribly dysfunctional family and the courageous young woman who had to come to terms with her often tragic life.
Rating: 
Summary: A Superb Read!!
Review: This is a powerful story which will grip you till the end. The miserable chilhood and the complicated family feudal was so true that it actually makes my heart ache for the author. Adeline the fifth child in the family was born just after couple of days that her mother died. Due to the fact that her father is a prominent businessman during that time, marriage proposals poured in right after her mother's death. However, his father had eyes on a French Chinese born, by the named of Jeanne Prosperi. She became the stepmother of 5 children and later gave birth to Franklin and Susan. The stepchildresn suffered tremendous ill treatment and unfairness under their stepmother regime as their father soon follows every word that the wife said. Adeline was given the worst treatment right till the death of the stepmother. Jeanne, the stepmother was a cruel and vindictive lady who resort all means to create rift and hatred between the 5 stepchildren. And they grew up not having the kinship, instead, bearing grudges and hostility behind each other's back. This is a compelling true story and one really should read it.
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Summary: Touching Story
Review: Riveting is the word that I can use to describe the story. Whether how true the story may sound, I leave it to the reader to judge. It is sad for me to read the story of such a family existed in this world. I wish that Adeline can forgive all those people who hert her and not forgetting the lessons learned. I wish those creatures in the book who happen to touch the book will cleanse themselves their life if they do so. GOod work, Adeline, I love your work more than Amy Tan's books. Give us more good book to read.
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Summary: Cinderella With An Historical Consciousness
Review: Adeline Yen Mah's "Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter", is a poignant account of one Chinese family's collision with generational change, history, a mother's death and a father's remarriage, and layers of parental, cultural, and personal views. Although the subtitle emphasizes the interpersonal relationships in an affluent, multi-generational mainland Chinese family, extending from the late 19th Century, through the tumultuous years of Guomintang rule, Japanese occupation, world war, and Communist ascendancy, to the material comforts of Hong Kong and international society. Mah's family members display a remarkable diversity of attitudes against a backdrop of changing political and economic conditions. It is Cinderella with an historical and cultural consciousness Mah's family portrait reveals just how diverse China was, and in many ways, still is. Her grand aunt founded and managed the Shanghai Women's Bank in 1924, eschewed foot-binding and marriage,and was rumored to have co-habitated with a long-term female companion. Her grandfather, Ye Ye, remained a devout Buddhist, and wore traditional Chinese robes and skullcap. Mah's mother, who died after the author's birth of puerperal fever, was the middle-class daughter of a Shanghai postal official, but her step-mother, Niang, the ''villain'' of the story, was the cultured, trilinqual daughter of a French soldier and a Chinese mother. The narrative races from Tianjin and Shanghai, to Hong Kong, Canada, the United States, Monaco, Great Britain, and Nigeria. The narrative traces a family's rise and fall from financial success and social prominence. Just as in any family saga, there are many heart-rending tales. The sory of the little baby chicks in Chapter Six and the many tales of sibling animosity are unexpectedly cutting. However, it is the tales concerning her grandfather's and aunt's gradual enfeeblement at the hands of their son's new wife, Niang, that raise the most disturbing questions. Readers, raised in families torn by abuse and neglect, will only too quickly recognize the author's psychological difficulties, which affect her own troubled, first marriage, her lack of self-confidence, her efforts to reconcile estranged family members, and her father-worship. Her arguments with both her ste p-mother's and father's children are also suprisingly bitter in detail, but typical for families affected by remarriage. What gives this memoir its punch, is not that so much Niang and her influence on her husband, but the clash of cultures and history as played out in the personalities of the characters. The memoir adds substance to dry discussions of Chinese history. It is much more than a Cinderella tale.
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Summary: questions and tears
Review: i cried when i read about adeline's ye ye to know that someone could be that cruel to their parent was dispicable. i felt that adeline's need to reunite the family was very puzzling why would she always go back and help the people that had made her life a living hell espically her stepmother. i would've liked her to explain why she always helped her ungrateful family members. Adeline should've been smart like susan who just left and didn't bother to care about a mother who obviously was self centered and a family who were just plain greedy.
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Summary: Knowledge can make a difference!
Review: The story is not only the unhappy life of Adeline - an unwanted daughter but also a brief development of mainland China and Hong Kong during the past decades. That enables me to grasp a basic impression of the life of chinese, the business style of Shanghai merchants, etc. easily. The best luck in her life is that her fatehr allowed her to continue her study abroad afterwards when she won an important writting competition at the age around 14. With the medical qulification, Adeline could get rid of her wicky family by choosing a new life in America, a place without her family control. From an unwanted daugther to an independant professional, Mah's experience does indicate that knowledge does make a difference as it enriches your life chance to make you become the real master of your own life.
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Summary: Potent, riveting drama
Review: The harrowing story of Adeline Yen Mah's terrible childhood will stay with me a long time. I have read a number of reviews here, complaining of the whining in this book. Having lived with an emotionally abusive parent, I found her story riveting. I related to so much of her yearning to be loved, wanted and accepted for who she was. The unending plotting of her "wicked stepmother" ultimately scarred the entire family. Everyone in that family learned to play the game. While perhaps her view of her own place in this family may be skewed by time, it is very hard to argue with the scenes of a small child sent to an orphanage, while her family still lived. I read this book in 2 days, always worrying about what would happen next, and fearing for what I felt would be a sad ending to a sad story. I was partly right.
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Summary: A superb study of a dysfunctional family
Review: Before our eyes unfolds an unbelievable tale of family loyalty, deceit and treachery that must have been painful for the author to write. Yen Mah's mother dies from puerperal fever shortly after the author's birth as a "Fifth Younger Daughter". Her father remarries the archetypical beautiful but evil stepmother who proceeds to rule the family through manipulation and covert brutality. Not that life amongst Yen Mah's existing siblings was blissful. Bullying of the weaker by the stronger is rife, and as the youngest child of the first wife Yen Mah is at the receiving end of much cruelty.Her only supporters are her aunt and grandfather, themselves patronised and humiliated by their brother's and son's new wife. Yen Mah escapes physically through education, but remains mentally attached. Even to the bitter end she yearns for acceptance by her father and stepmother who bestow favours or disown their children seemingly at a whim. Many a time I found myself asking:"Why does she put up with this?" But I do not think it is fair, as some previous reviews have done, to accuse the author of whining. To anyone brought up with western"values" with greater emphasis on individuality and personal happiness and loosened family bonds this mindset must seem strange. Where deferrence to age and unquestioning obedience is expected, it is a courageous act to mention any fact which could cause your superior to "lose face". Which makes it most remarkeable that Yen Mah's father seems to forget his obligations to his father and sister(not to mention to his children). To me, he, and not only the evil stepmother , is the real villain of this story. But even beyond his death the abominable "Niang" sows strife among the siblings. Although revenge was surely not the author's motive, she has got her own back with this book.
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