Rating: 
Summary: Can I have a little cheese with that whine?
Review: The word memior has become synominous with airing one's dirty laundry. Everyone seems to have a sad story to sell. Unfortunately, Adeline Yen Mah perfers to focus on her self pity rather than her rescilliancy. Admittably, she had a stepmother that riviled Cruella Deville but I found it difficult to feel sorry for her when she made such poor choices in relationships. I felt the real survivior of the tale was little sister Susan. Why was she able to distance her self from the dysfunctional lot while the author continually pined for recognition? I was interested in learning more about Chinese culture and how communism had affected it and I had hoped that this book would be more enlightening. Sadly, the snippets of history, sandwiched between the sanctamonious whining, were not enough to satisfy cerebral needs. Although for some reason, the author chose to reveal the year that the Hong Kong Hilton was torn down! I am sure that the author is an intelligent, accomplished woman and I hope that she will find peace within herself and stop looking within her family!
Rating: 
Summary: Glad Her Leaf Fell Far From This Family Tree
Review: Couldn't put it down! This is a story of devotion, betrayal, perserverence, betrayal, overcoming adversities and more betrayal. The only thing I would have added to this story to make it more enjoyable is a follow-up describing Lydia, Edward and other siblings (and their children) spending their remaining years in purgatory for the way they shamefully treated their sister. If only the continued story made Lydia a housekeeper to O.J. Simpson and her brothers members of a chain-gang. Oh well, I can dream, can't I?
Rating:
Summary: Triumph of the Human Will
Review: "Falling Leaves" makes the favourite fairytale character Cinderella's sufferings pale in comparison. Unlike Cinderella, who had a fairy godmother to banish her woes magically, the writer Adeline Yen Mah had to constantly battle hurdle arter hurdle. Her poignant chronicles from a tragic girlhood of mistreatment and isolation to an abusive first marriage to an intircate web of familial betrayals and manipulations. There are several things to admire in the writer's intimate memoirs. Set admist the rich backdrop of the political strife and socio-cultural change in China, the autobiography stands out elegantly as a testimony of an individual woman's indomitable will and perseverance to carve a better life for herself. Adeline Yen Mah's binding relationship with her aunt Baba, her childhood defender, is profoundly moving, especially as it stretches into the moment of reunion late in the novel. Never reduced to a hapless victim or pawn, the writer's capacity for forgiveness and compassion towards her childhood tormentors highlights her quiet strength and dignity. A story that illustrates the fundamental human need for love and acceptance. A thoroughly engrossing and heart-tugging book that lingers in your consciousness and perhaps even cause you to shed a few tears.
Rating: 
Summary: couldn't put it down
Review: I simply couldn't put this book down. Reading about life as a young, unwanted Chinese daughter was fascinating. No, this isn't the *best* book I've ever read, but it was interesting. Perhaps the story was told in more of a factual manner than I would have liked...I was more interested in Adeline's emotional experience. But otherwise, it was quite good. FYI: both my mother and sister liked it as well.
Rating:
Summary: "Is anything Impossible?"
Review: almost up to the middle of the book.. I wasn't impressed nor affected.. I thought that what Adeline went through was normal in a family with a stepmother. In our - Arab - world we hear, live through & see a lot of stories as such, furthermore, most of the arab movies still talk about stepparent's problems. But what I liked most was her persistance, she never gave up, she managed to complete her studies, and earn her living, she went through a bad first marriage, but her second was a blessing. The way I see it; there is a lot of good in her character, unlike the rest of her family, and the good in her, got her through life to success. Being an arab, and coming from a reserved family, I understood her struggle for affection from her parents, her insistance on getting it till the end, and her struggle to please. The traditional upbringing, the social & family values in which we're brought up creates, if not strong ties, then strong soical awareness; where everyone in your family counts and has an affect on you, unlike the western societies where everyone lives as a seperate individual. In general, I think its a great book, I enjoyed reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Simply splendid!!
Review: I counldn't put this book down when I first started reading it. What Adeline Yen Mah went thru was simply unbelieveable but very much true in that traditional and ancient era. Despite the fact she was born in a wealthy family but what she has suffered from her stepmother treatment and discrimations has made her no different from the hardship the poor experienced. Through her intense experiences that she has written in her book, it has made me understand more of the unequal treatment and choas in that era. Her book is simply splendid!
Rating:
Summary: A Chinese "Mommy Dearest"
Review: I wasn't impressed. For one thing, contrary to what the cover implies, this is not the story of a typical Chinese family, you know, of the "throw the unwanted chinese daughter into the well" variety. Adeline is born into a wealthy Chinese family, unfortunately the last child of a mother who both her father and her stepfather really don't want to be reminded of. Don't get me wrong - these are not nice people, but Adeline's complaints get pretty petty. She complains when her parents won't give her tram fare unless she "begs" for it, she complains that she wasn't given an allowance, she complains that her father, after paying for her entire education, asks her to work for a friend of his. I'm not saying that the emotional abuse that she received from her family wasn't horrifying - but the author keeps coming back for more, long after it's apparent that none of these horrible people are going to change. She puts her sister's kids through college, only to be rebuffed and betrayed (I'm still getting over that one). She tries to help her sick father and stepmother, only to be disinherited. Yet she keeps hanging on. Her conversation with her brother James at the end of the book sums it up - she's the only one that cared about family ties, the rest of them were in it for themselves. Well, DUH. A few chapters in, I'd gone quickly from, "Well, that sucks", to "What the heck is the matter with you?? RUN!!!" And she never does. And the tone of the book just gets whinier and whinier. And I felt less and less sorry for her. At the end, I wondered what her point was in writing this book - revenge? Throwing an international pity party so she could bask in the sympathy of thousands, if not millions, of strangers? There are a lot of people who will say, "well, culturally speaking, she couldn't be expected to behave in any other way." Based on the conduct of her siblings, apparently not. Plus, if that's so, what right does she have to complain?
Rating: 
Summary: Suan le!
Review: Is there a book more cloyingly self-pitiful? From childhood through to present-day adult, her life has been one big complaint. Yen-Mah seems to forget her own privileged background in her quest to demolish the people around her, while still maintaining her purer-than-thou innocence. Like the very people she speaks of, the writer insinuates character slurs of others (usually through putting words into other people's mouths, thereby achieving a semblance of 'objectivity' while dishing out effectively scathing criticisms of others). It is curious to note that after spending an entire book trying to convince her readers of how much her stepmother hates her, Yen-Mah could somehow express such disbelief and emotional shock at the end, when informed that she had been left out of her stepmother's will ("Surely, she must have had *some* feeling for me..."; "Why, James, why? Why did she loathe me so?"). The lady doth protest too much, indeed. She may have hoped to emerge as the fabled phoenix, rising from the ashes of an admittedly traumatic childhood, but Adeline Yen Mah remains highly unsympathetic (and even unlikeable) to the end, and her book is nothing more than a feeble attempt to turn the rest of the world against her family, as part of a personal vendetta. As repeated many times in the book, suan le! (forget it!)--you can do without reading this whiny mush that purports to be the work of an intelligent and mature person. The writer remains a child, and continues to position herself as *the* victim of culture and time.
Rating:
Summary: demoralization against author fails
Review: This is my first on-line review. Is Adeline Yen Mah's humility a virtue or a "KICK ME" sign? This enigma floats over the author like the "falling leaves" of her book's title. Adeline's sensitivity is smashed repeatedly against walls of cynicism. Her four siblings are bricks in those walls. Adeline also has a half-sister, Susan. Susan is the only daughter of Adeline's fanged step-mother. Although rich in business, Adeline's father is weak in character. He shames his own father, scorns his sister (Adeline's aunt and guardian angel), desecrates the memory of his first wife, and humiliates his five "bad blood" children. Born of a jelly-fish father, Adeline's childhood strength is a wonder. She endures her parents' heinous demoralization campaign. When that onslaught fails, they isolate eleven-year-old Adeline in a convent that is in the path of the advancing Red Army. Insider accounts of recent Chinese history enhance Adeline Yen Mah's autobiography as she defies a quoted Chinese proverb: "Family Ugliness Should Never be Aired in Public."
Rating:
Summary: My girlfriend loves this book.
Review: I on the other hand do not.
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