Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Story!
Review: This was one of the most touching stories I have ever read; it is beautifuly written and heartrenching, yet warms the spirit to hear of such a strong soul! I cried at the injustices Adeline suffered at the hands of her father and especially her step-mother. I was also moved to tears by the injustice endured by her family at the hands of the angry mobs in revolutionary China. I was overjoyed and excited for her in her triumphs. I came to feel love and care for this amazing young woman from China, a place so foriegn to me. I came to better understand what compels others to do things not in their own best intrests in order to gain the acceptance and affection of a loved one. I believe we should thank Ms. Adeline Yen Mah for her courage and strengh and her gift to us, that of sharing her amazing spirit with her readers. I encountered great difficulty putting this book down, and when not reading I found myself thinking of the story! A wonderful literary expierience for anyone!
Rating:
Summary: Falling Leaves: The true story of an unwanted chinese daught
Review: It's one of the finest biographies I've read lately. The story is inspiring, rivetting and well written. It touched the heart in a way that it forced to see the human's potential to endure adversities and atrocities in life rather than feel depressed about it. It's a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: A readable book, but....
Review: it's no doubt that this is a readable book, the author has the right not to forgive her relatives. I just wonder why most of the books by chinese authors are about a terrible life in China. is it really that terrible to everyone's life back then? i am a chinese, a book by chinese author is easier for me to read and understand because of the way they write. however, i am tired of reading this kind of stories. can we have something happy or peaceful?
Rating:
Summary: Falling Leaves
Review: This book is truly brilliant. It's story captures the heart of all who read it. Such emotion is put into the book and equally given out when its read. The story made me wonder alot about how good i thought i was, when i see what she has come through and ended up like i can't imagine myself doing it. An excellent account of what life was like.
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Summary: A Truly Moving book, makes you appreciate a loving family
Review: When my mom, (i am 13), finished this book on a family vacation, she urged me to read it. I wasn't too crazy about the story line, from the back cover. I had just finished a sad book, and I wanted to read something a little more uplifting. Well, on the way home, I discovered that i had packed all my books, and i couldnt get at them. So, I picked up falling leaves, and didn't stop reading untill i was finished. Adeline Mah is a truly brave woman, and it must have been a very painful experience to relive all her memories as she wrote the book. I read one of the reviews, and it said that worse things could happen. Yeah, thats true, but when youre all alone, everything seems more dreary than it is. When you have love and support from your family, worse things seem more bearable. I congratulate the author on writing such a good book that both a mother and daughter could both enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: personal happiness has little to do with money
Review: the book contained some interesting memoirs. she did not live the most tragic life on earth; many many many people have suffered a lot worse than dr. mah, believe me. however, for those of you who criticize her for her sense of being unloved by her family, etc,etc, while she received good education and had good meals and all other materialistic goods, i would like to say that you people have to understand that personal happiness is a relative thing. you're right, money does provide some compensation and helps to bring mental compensation, and dr. mah should be thankful towards her family in that respect, but there is limit to how much personal happiness money can bring. if you people cannot see that, you guys are the idiots, not her. i did feel that her story was one-sided perhaps, but who cares, after all it is about her own account of her life...however she wants to interpret it is her choice. and for anyone trying to write an autobiography, self-sympathy is never avoidable. it is not about how much she suffered...in comparison to other chinese women. as a matter of fact, i did not feel that she suffered enough of how ugly life can really get, but should not be the issue. she DID have an interesting family life, and we have to admit that...the wealth of the family adding to the drama...and because of her unusual family setting and all, perhaps she felt somewhat responsible to tell the public about her memoirs. and i think it is always worth reading/listening to someone who has had an "unusual" life... i was not too fascinated by her writing style. there is nothing wrong with it either, but it could have been better if she could put in more emotions into it. readers are not so much interested in boring facts...we want to get more glimpses into some real-life human passions. about small details that matter to her personally, etc.etc. like i mentioned before, she seems to have written the book from this sense of responsibility to tell...yet she is not really an artist. a real artist/novelist should be able to express and not be afraid to talk about what the general public cannot talk about. i mean, she did a good job recording the events of her life...but could have provided us with far better insight. even after having read it, i cannot escape feeling that she hasn't "really" told it... personally i don't believe that she suffered anything really tragic nor traumatic, but that basically there was no love in the family. and...how many of us get that?..yet it is natural to still long for a united family, i think. so for those readers that said she needed some serious therapy, well if she was able to become a doctor then she manages her life well enough- why don't yourselves go get some therapy? i am still glad to have read the book. she could have told it better, but, anyway the accounts were worth reading about.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting
Review: The book is a wonderful interpretation of the author's life. The descriptions of the boarding house and how Niang(stepmother) only gave her notice when she achieved more than her brothers. Her stories of abuse were emotionally challenging. I also found the betrayal by her sister most disturbing. Overall I thought the book was beautifully written and the forgivness of the author was admirable. I would recommend this book to anyone who could deal with the issues faced by the book.
Rating:
Summary: UNBELIEVABLE - HEART WRENCHING - A MUST READ
Review: I have never been so touched by a true story in my 47 years of life. I was hurting the entire time I read it and could relate to much of it from my own experiences of growing up with a father who treated his sons far better than his daughters and still does. To say that I am impressed with Adeline's ability to write this book is an understatement. My only hope is that writing this was therapeutic for her and that she lives a long happy life with her husband Robert. I have recommended this book to anyone and everyone who reads and I don't know a single soul who didn't have trouble putting it down. 12 out of 12 women in my book club thought the book was superb - and we don't agree on much! Great for group discussions. Don't even get me started on her children's version "Chinese Cinderella" ...I'll let my 10 year old son review that one!
Rating:
Summary: Once I started I had to finish it
Review: The story was moving and descriptive of true human experience. Contentment doesn't come from revenge but from acceptance and forgiveness. The author's language painted a clear picture of her life in Shanghai. Her words were full of life. You can feel her anguish and suffering, how she felt being the only boarder left in school during Christmas. The images were so vivid. I cried while reading the book. I couldn't imagine how a mother (Niang) could be so cruel even to her own daughter. This is one book I simply couldn't put down.
Rating:
Summary: disturbing but powerful
Review: To kill time while i was having IV injections in a hospital bed, i picked up the book. To my surprise, i was compelled to reading it through for the next one day and one night, promting plenty of complains from my doctor and nurses. However, i simply could not put down the book. The story, or Adeline's life experience was so disturbingly painful, but her description was so powerful. As a Chinese born also in Shanghai, i comprehend and appreciate fully the circumstances and historical evens surrounding the family, the city (Shanghai, Tianjin and Hong Kong) as well the country. Her life-time search for family acceptance and love in a loveless family was so painstakingly persistent that i found myself more than once crying. Human nature was distorted by greed, jealousy and ego-mania. In her case, human nature was further distorted by complications of a political movement in China. China's Culture Revolution, in particular, has twisted many people's consciousness, sharpening their knives against their own family members, friends and many other innocent people. In this case, i found Lydia is equally ugly as Niang. Even though Adeline's growing life was tough beyond imagination, Adeline didn't seem to stop smiling, caring for others, looking for the bright future and having wonderful sense of humor, for that, i admire her courage. The book is also beautifully versed with excellent insertions of Chinese proverbs, further evidence of her ability of winning a world writing award even as a young girl. If any improvement, i just wish the ending is not so abrupt. Life has not done her justice yet. I hope she will have a sequal. I also sincerely hope the Yen family ugliness will not pass on to the third generation as already shown in Lydia's family.
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