Rating: 
Summary: A Beautiful But Sad Story
Review: It is one of my dreams to adopt a baby girl from China. I think it is because of this that I read a lot of stories about unwanted and/or orphaned Asian children. I actually read Chinese Cinderella, a smaller version of this book, before I read Falling Leaves. I prefer Falling Leaves simply because there's more of it. And Chinese Cinderella ends before Adeline grew up and began to believe her life was precious, which very few people had told her during her childhood.
I cried when I read this book. It was not that she was a terribly abused child; she was quite simply unwanted and unloved. On the outside, to an outsider, it wouldn't really look like abuse. But to a little girl, it was devastating. Nobody, with the exception of her aunt, cared about her feelings at all.
The one thing I wanted to do while reading this book was to adopt Adeline and give her all the love and attention and care she was so hungry for.
Rating: 
Summary: Stuff of fairy tales
Review: Without a doubt, Adeline Mah's memoir is punctuated with disturbing details of a step mother'cruelty and hunger for power, and a family that succumbed and then participated in her emotional abuse. While I sympathize with the author's past plight, about one third into the book until the end, I began having difficulties with the way the story was being told. The characters in the book were not real to me, because everyone is either black or white, good or evil. The author herself is clothed in the glowing light of her wonderful deeds. While most other characters in the book become greedy, selfish, and vengeful, she is practically the only one who remains generous and kind. I'm not saying that the author doesn't possess those characteristics. Still, I have difficulty in believing in characters where those who are "good" don't possess what would be considered "bad" characteristics, and those who are "evil" seem to have no redeeming qualities at all (i.e. step mom, older sister, etc).
Another aspect that began making me wonder at the author's rendition of her childhood is the emotions and lack of negative emotions that she displays. The author lists her fears and the ill-treatment she received while she was young. But she doesn't talk about being angry or bitter or wanting to hurt her step mom. Wouldn't that be a more natural reaction to the abuses she endured? But the reader never reads those things. Perhaps the author never had those feelings? Not once? I'm not introducing the idea that the author should add to the litany of abuses she endured another list of when she was angry, BUT the absence of even an iota of such emotion makes me wonder. After all, I as a reader was angry that someone could be treated in such a way. I wouldn't have decried the author for having some angry thoughts at her ill treatment. At least the character would seem a little more real to me. It is sad that the author had to endure emotional and mental trauma at the hands of her family. However, my question is how much of it is true, what is left out, and what is being exaggerated, because ultimately people aren't just pure good and pure evil, or never angry and selfish or only scheming and bitter. As humans, we have the potential to be generous, loving, kind and to be bad, greedy, selfish, and vengeful. And we have the ability to learn and grow from our mistakes and hopefully do better. If the author had represented the story in a different way (because it seems that she does want to show the potential that one human being can have) instead of listing her traumas and good deeds and also all the bad deeds of most of the people around her, then I would not be left questioning the authenticity of her story. Pure good and pure evil are the stuff in fair tales, not real life.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but a one-sided story
Review: This book is well-written and captivating. The descriptions of turmoil in China seen thru the eyes of a child are interesting. All children are self-centered and feel neglected to some extent, but she makes a strong Cinderella case. However, we read just one side of the story. As she reaches adulthood, we see many signs that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree": she dumps the university researcher and first husband when their usefulness is spent, buys a new Mercedes on impulse, fights with siblings over the estate, etc. The abused become the abusers.
Rating: 
Summary: an amazing story of her life
Review: This book is well written, as is the children's version called the Chinese Cinderella. It is the true tale of Adeline's life as an unwanted child in a wealthy Chinese family, starting with the arrival of the "wicked stepmother" when she is 5 years old. In children's literature there are two notorious families: the Dursleys of Harry Potter fame, and the parents of Roald Dahl's Matilda. In real life, I have found only one story more puzzling and disturbing than Falling Leaves, and that is Herve Bazin's Vipere au Poing, the story of his youth and his devious, nasty mother. Set against the turbulent times in China and Hong Kong from 1930 to 1990, Adeline describes her youth in various private schools in China, through college and medical school in England, on to her success as an anesthesiologist in California. All her life she struggles to prove her worth, and earn her family's respect and love. She believes that if she can only work hard enough, she can create a loving family around her. She recounts what one must regard as amazing strength of will against her tyrannical parents. Her personal explanations of life in China and Hong Kong are quite interesting, and there is the inspiring aspect of her tale, the victory against such crushing odds. I really enjoyed this book, and did not want to put it down, as I was always hoping the next chapter would relate how she got the recognition she sought. I strongly recommend this book, and the children's version.
Rating:
Summary: touching!
Review: I was weeping constantly when I was reading this book. It's truly a wonderful book that one rarely finds. some say this book is nothing but about self-pity and complains. it is not! it's more about faint hope, struggle, starvation of family love, and lingering optimism. althought it needs more touch in organization of thoughts, this book promotes a valuable and simple message for its reader: though living in an unfavored circumstances, one still has the power to change his life; thus, keep on hoping, dreaming, daring to go on !!!!!
(for those who think it's a plain book, I suggest you should go to your doctors to check your hearts . ^_^ . *peace* !)
Rating:
Summary: Falling Leaves: A sad, but true tale of an unwanted girl
Review: I read the autobiography, Falling Leaves , by Adeline Yen Mah. I had read Chinese Cinderella by the same author earlier this year. The first book had covered only her childhood. I was interested in reading more about Adeline Yen Mah?s life. Falling Leaves tells the story of her entire life. At first, I thought the book would be about an orphan who became successful in life. It was really about a woman realizing that she could never get back her families acceptance and love.
As a young child in China , Adeline was unwanted. Her mother died giving birth to her. In Chinese tradition, this cursed her for the rest of her life. Just like in the fairy tale Cinderella, her father remarried a woman called Niang, who hated Adeline and mistreated her throughout her childhood until Adeline left for boarding school. Even though she went on to Medical School and later became a U.S. citizen, she continued to remain unhappy. After divorcing her first husband, she remarried and finally found love and acceptance. In the end of the book,however, she does not live happily ever after. I liked this book because it showed what life was like for females in China . While her brothers became independent and responsible, Adeline was always told what to do and how to live her life . She didn?t have many choices. When she went to collage she was treated as if she wasn?t capable of learning and didn?t have all the rights that she was entitled to. This was due to her being female and Chinese.
I disliked the book because it was too sad, and it is difficult to read about someone else?s tragedy. Niang treated her kids much better then she treated her step children. Her own kids got sweets and allowances when her step children got only healthy foods and no spending money. Really, Adeline never got to the ?And they all lived happily ever after? part of her life. Although this book was tragic for the protagonist, I enjoyed reading it. I would recommend this book to people who like to become involved in emotional stories.
Rating:
Summary: Strong themes
Review: This was a heartbreaking story of how one girl was treated growing up. It was harder for me to continue felling sorry for her after she left home. She seemed too fixated on getting her parent's love. She just kept going back for more rejection. Also, the main story is interspersed with bits of history, which made it slightly confusing.
Rating:
Summary: A family's pain, a child's sorrow.
Review: What a family! Adeline Yen Mah's description of growing up in a dysfunctional family defy's comparison. Well, I suppose that should not be surprising, since Tolstoy said that, "All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I didn't want to read this book. I have been very interested in the history of Modern China (by which I mean roughly the period of time since the Macartney Mission of 1793), but I didn't think this book would add a lot of insight to my study, and...well, I guess I just wasn't in the mood for another "poor me" book. In retrospect, the book really did add more to my feel at least for the period since the revolution in 1949 than I had expected, and once I had allowed myself to be drawn into the incredible pain of this book, it could never be just another story. One of the main questions that plagued me as I began reading this book was just where the "center" of the problem lay. Adeline talks a lot about her step mother, and what a terrible person she was. But all stepmothers are "terrible." Of course I don't mean that literally, but what I do mean is that the "step mother" syndrome is as old as history, and it is just very, very hard for a step mother to be viewed as a "good" person by all her children. None of that takes away from the fact that Adeline's step mother was a spoiled brat, but it does tend to make me slow to judge. The answer really came to me on page 63, when Adeline's father held her little pet duckling in front of the family dog to test his obedience. The dog failed the test and Adeline was devastated. Her father was the problem. No question about it. The effects of his complete inability to be a father were far reaching. Relationships among siblings were fragmented, with very little family cohesiveness. To say that there was sibling rivalry wouldn't mean much, because that is pretty normal. But there seemed to be an edginess that went beyond childhood into adult life, reaching a level of mean-spiritedness quite different from mere sibling rivalry. Of course Adeline herself is not completely free from this, as exemplified by the regrettable lines where she is describing her brother Edgar's physical features in an absurd attempt to establish that he is the ugliest of her brothers. Is it just convenient coincidence that the brother she likes least is the one that is "least favored?" And Edgar proves himself to be worthy of her contempt, serving his own urine to her as orange juice at their stepmother's funeral. The promotion on the cover on this book calls it a "triumphant story." I disagree. This book is not triumph. It is tragedy. But, as tragedy, it is nonetheless profound and compelling. Adeline Yen Mah is a very gifted writer. But even this fact reiterates the pathos of her condition. Adeline wanted to be a writer, but her father insisted that she become a physician. If he had let her be herself, I have no doubt that she could have been a great writer. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. She is a great writer, of course, but I just wonder what she might have become if she had been allowed to fulfill her dream, especially given her unusual talent for expressing herself in writing. This brings to mind an additional dimension to this book. The book is full of pithy phrases drawn from traditional Chinese culture in order to make a point relevant to the events of Adeline's life. Whatever else may be said, the literary quality of Adeline Yen Mah's writing cannot be denied. I still have mixed feelings about the merits of airing this kind of pain before the whole world. And I can only imagine what her relationship (relationship??) with her siblings must be like since the publication of this book. But I gave this book five stars for two reasons: First, I never found myself questioning Adeline's basic integrity. Her brothers and sisters (especially Lydia, who is vilified with particular energy at the end of the book) may disagree, but I can only give my honest impression. I never got the feeling that Adeline was making up the story as she went along. If her siblings wish to discredit her, they will have a difficult time, because she is very believable. Second, Adeline Yen Mah's gift for expressing herself in writing makes reading her stuff an enriching, if not always painless experience. As a result of this experience, I am drawn to anything with her name on it. Should she have written this book? I don't know. I need more time to think about it. I suppose, in the end, it had to be her decision, but I can't help wondering if the release she sought by baring her soul was worth what it must have cost her. One can only hope that her future books will be less painful for her, because they will, without question, be a great delight to read.
Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: Perhaps this is a better book than I realized because it did not live up to my expectations. I was expecting history told through the events of someone's life versus just a personal histoy. And one that wasn't well told at that. Wild Swans is a much better example of learning about communist China through the eyes of someone(s) who lived it. Even Amy Tan's fictional Joy Luck Club provides a better example of how people's actions, feelings, and survival skills are shaped events.
Rating:
Summary: One Word Is Worth 1000 Pieces of Gold
Review: Yen Mah brings the reader into the world of an unwanted and unlucky child in her haunting biography. It is amazing the trials she had to endure on her way to becomming a medical doctor and now an accomplished writer. The story she tells in this short book is rich and full of detail, an amazing portrait of her life. Her writing, while inexperienced, successfully brings the reader into the story. Having been in Shanghai myself I can still smell the sweet buns and the crabapples when I read her story.
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