Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter

Waa Waa Waa What a whinner!

I kept reading ... hoping it would get better. This woman has no idea how to appreciate what she has. She complains about how terrible her childhood was and I then presumed she would try her best to be a great mother. BUT she had so little to say about the joys of becoming a mother and then obviously with no lesson learned from her own childhood I am sure her children had the same miserable life. I wanted to smack her and say wake up. You are missing out on everything, get over it.

4 out of 13 people found this review helpful.

A Heart and Gut Wrencher

This book provoked so many feelings! There were times you wanted to jump in and just wrap your arms around the author when she was a little girl. Then towards the end you start to feel anger and hatred towards those around her. This book is worth reading! There isn't much else to say. Read it!!! :)

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Falling Leaves, the struggle for acceptance

¿Falling Leaves¿ by Adeline Yen Mah is certainly a must read. ¿Falling Leaves¿ is an autobiography about Adeline¿s childhood troubles. Adeline mentions her stepmother¿s abuse, and control over the household with an iron fist. Throughout the book Adeline refers to history in China to help tell additional problems in her childhood. Adeline mentions that her aunt Baba was affected greatly when Mao Zedong controlled China. She also mentions how her father company was affected by Mao. An issue I had with this book is when Adeline jumps from the present to the past quickly. An example of this is when she is talking about her grandmother and talks something in the past. Another issue I had is the beginning of the book is boring. Besides those issues ¿Falling Leaves¿ was an enjoyable book. Overall I would give this book a 5 out of 5 and strongly recommend it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

thought provoking

This book came to me at a time in my life when I didn't know which direction to take. The title grabbed me and for two days straight I read her story. At times, empathizing with her because I felt some of the emotions she poured onto the page. Tears poured for her because no one deserves the pain she felt in her life... good read, really recomend it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

great

i dont know how to decribe how good this book is. it is fantastic and i dont know how ANYBODY could refuse to read it. adeline yen mah is beyond the best writer ever. she captures her childhood and explains how hard it was for her to grow up. if you havent read this book, READ IT. it will change your understanding of people who are less fortunate then you are, and how they live.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Falling leaves by Adeline Yen Mah is a wonderful book and you mu

Falling leaves by Adeline Yen Mah is a wonderful book and you must read it. The beginning is boring, giving you the history of China, but it gives you an idea of the problems that were going on in China while Adeline was growing up. There is quite a bit of Chinese history in this book, but it is necessary in the book because it helps you to understand why her father had to run away, move, change businesses, and many other scenarios like this. These parts to me were a bit boring and I skimmed over these parts. In order to really get her father's business ordeals, you must read through the history parts carefully because it explains to you the oppression and control that is put on China by the Communists and the foreign invaders. Once you get past the beginning history of this book, it's captivating. It's kind of slow in the beginning, but you get drawn in once the mother passes away. Then, everything starts going downhill for Adeline and you don't want to put down the book because you want to see if things will get better for her or what her family will do to her next. To me, the way her family acted seemed unrealistic, but I guess that just makes you realize how horrible the things she went through were. Even though it sounds as if she is making up parts of the books, it's a memoir and I have to get used to the fact that all these horrible things are real. I can't believe that her father would be that controlling and mean to his own father. His father is the one who should have control over him, but instead it is the other way around and to me, that is crazy. It was also infuriating to read the ending parts with James in them. Adeline had said that she was closest to James when she was little, but the end chapters showed us how wrong she was. The way he told everyone to just let things go was almost impossible to read. The way he just went along with Niang against Adeline and her brothers was unbearable. There are some scenes with their dad that make you feel as if there is hope for Adeline. But once Niang comes back from where ever she is, the moment is ruined and you feel like pushing her out of the room. The way their father withers away and shrinks away from his family makes you wonder why he doesn't just break up with her and there aren't any hints of why he stays with her. Sometimes he was so nice to Adeline that you thought things could change, but other times he was like James and didn't have a backbone. I also don't get how he can love his stepchildren more than his own. Adeline's naiveness is also sad. She yearns for so much love that she goes through anything to be with her family when they need her, even though they have screwed her over so many times. She still goes back to them, even after her unbearable childhood with them and the bipolar relationships she has with them. This book was written in a really simple way and it was an easy to read book. There weren't any big words that I had to assume the reading of, but there were a few words that were spelled weirdly. One was percent and it was spelled per cent. I don't know why she did this, but the word popped up that way throughout the whole book. I am glad that I had to read this for an outside requirement because it turned out to be a fantastic book. I like the way that Adeline makes you feel all of the emotions that she feels and I think that adds a ton to the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who just wants something to read.

The book overall was very good. Each event of her life was very

The book overall was very good. Each event of her life was very descriptive and detailed. She told how she was young and treated poorly by her siblings and step mother, the hardships she’s been though over her life time. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking knowledge of a life very different from their own written by that person. This book gave me a better appreciation of my life. Although I’ve been though a lot by the age of three this woman has been through more by the time she was born an unwanted child. For readers everywhere this book should come as an interest.

Falling Leaves

I really liked this book, but I had some problems with it. At first, I didn't get what was going on and it was very confusing. The time in this book is very confusing. She jumps back and forth between past and present and sometimes I can't tell if it's in the past or the present. Also, the beginning was boring and it took me forever to read. After around 50 pages the book started getting interesting. If you are a teenager some of the words may be challenging. The imagery is very detailed and descriptive that sometimes I would feel as though I were in her shoes. Every sad moment I felt like I wanted to cry. It made me realize that my life isn't bad and that I should be grateful that I have parents who love and take care of me. I really like how she put Chinese quotes as the chapter title and tied it into the story. It amazes me how she got through all her hardships and became her own person without having to rely on her family. Overall, I liked the story, but I wish that she stood up to them or cut ties with them after everything they put her through. If she knew she was going to get hurt, why stay with them? This book has made me realize what it means to be unloved, and how unbearable it can be. Adeline's childhood was filled with hate and loneliness, but in the end she finds people who love her for her. This book was a very well written book and I would absolutely recommend it.

So Sad!

The memoir Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah is a touching story about a young Chinese girl's abusive childhood. This book was amazingly sad and my heart went out to Mah as I was reading it. She not only survived throughout the abuse and neglect from nearly her entire family, but she also succeeded immensely in adulthood. She is the Cinderella of China. I loved the detailed descriptions in the book. Nearly all the scenes were very imaginable. I liked how Mah includes many different aspects of writing, from her second happy marriage, to the suspense about her father's will. However, the beginning is a little boring, what with all the history about China and such. Some of the history is also a little unexplained and confusing and left me with many questions, but they were answered at the end.
Falling Leaves was very well written. It had lots of details descriptions about everyone in her family, especially her abusive stepmother, Niang. The images of pain Niang caused Mah throughout the book were very concrete and detailed. I could feel myself flinching with every slap or verbal abuse thrown at her, and I know I said the word "aw" multiple times while reading it. Mah made it very easy to understand the hurt of pain, rejection, and humiliation she endured nearly her whole life, even in adulthood.
Adeline Yen Mah is an incredibly strong woman. If I had gone through what she did, I don't think I would have survived. But Mah pushed through and never gave up, and I think her success in life and her well written book both deserve two thumbs up.

Highly Recommended!!

I absolutely loved this book! I enjoyed the fact that it was a real story although there were parts which I wished were only fiction. It's hard to imagine what this woman went through emotionally when she was a child and even as an adolescent. This is the memoir of a Chinese physician and author who lives here in the US and who shares with us the story of her life with its ups and many many downs. Losing her birth mother due to complications from her own birth she becomes the ostracized and the unwanted daughter of a very successful businessman and her stepmother who engages in complicated intrigues to turn all her stepchildren against each other. Her whole life, Adeline strives for the love and acceptance of her family but no matter how hard she tries and regardless of her achievements she only manages to attract more hatred and rejection. More than once she finds herself thrown into boarding schools that resemble orphanages in her parents' attempt to get rid of her forever. Somehow, she always manages to come back into their house for another round of insults and beatings. It's impressive how she manages in the end to built a good life for herself and find love so far far away from home and so far from those who worked so hard to deprive her from it. This is a sad but wonderful story and I admire her for her strength and determination to never give up on herself and her dreams! I highly recommend this book!

Really Touching!

We all know what its like to want our parents to love us. In Falling Leaves, Adeline Yen describes how she yearned for just that. Adeline was born to a highly affluent Chinese family just before World War II. During Adeline's birth, her mother died, leaving 5 children. Her father soon found a new wife, who the children called Niang, or other mother. After that marriage, Adeline's life became like that of Cinderella. She had to live at the mercy of Niang, who despised her.
Falling Leaves is the incredible true story of Adeline Yen Mah who against all odds was able to become successful in spite of her childhood and constant abuse. The book is written extremely well. I read it in just one day. Tt managed to keep me engaged for 3 straight hours without pause. Each chapter recounts a different story, each one more touching than the next. Adeline Yen Mah's life was a hard one and I often found myself ready to tear up. In one chapter, she described how her closest brother watched as Niang took a beating to her without any expression. Afterward, her brother said to her "It is what it is. Let it be. Don't become attatched to people. They will always hurt you".
I highly suggest this book! Readers of other Asian authors like Gail Tsukiama and Amy Tan will enjoy Falling Leaves for both its Asian style and memorable story.

Emotionally captivating

Adeline Yen Mah's memoir, Falling Leaves, is so full of detail, from the author's experiences as a child and adult to the setting. I felt like I traveled into the book and shadowed the author throughout the story. Her vivid language and dialog really helped me to visualize the scenes For example, whenever Niang is being horrible to someone, you feel bad because you can imagine a cruel person saying the dialog to you. Her words are so powerful; I felt happy when the future was actually looking bright for her and indignant when Niang found another way to make her life miserable. Her will to succeed against all odds is so strong and inspiring. She doesn't just write about her own unfortunate life, but also that of her siblings, showing that she cares about her family even if they don't care about her. Aunt Baba treats Adeline with an unconditional love hat all children should receive from their family. While no one else sees her worth, Aunt Baba encourages her and pushes her to succeed, saying that she'll have the best future out of all of her siblings. Her historical recount of China was detailed and interesting to read, not at all boring. The emotions portrayed in the memoir were astounding. The author wrote about her troubled past, but it did not feel like it was because she wanted pity, but because she wanted her story to be heard. Compared to Adeline Yen Mah's other novel for children, Chinese Cinderella, Falling Leaves was much more enjoyable. While Chinese Cinderella was a riveting tale about the author's childhood, it was not quite as powerful as her memoir for adults. Falling Leaves had more detail about the time period, experiences, and the author's own emotions. However, I recommend Chinese Cinderella if you enjoyed this memoir because it gives you more of an idea about where her life stemmed from.

How To Overcome Suffering

Falling Leaves is the most encouraging, heartbreaking, tear-streaming book I've ever read. Adeline Yen Mah has shared her most painful memories in her book, Falling Leaves. She tells of her abandoned and abusive childhood, her shattered experiences at romance, and her on-going attempts to bring honor to her family. Falling Leaves is the sequel to Adeline's first, Chinese Cinderella. I would recommend both because without one, the other would be hard to make sense of. Chinese Cinderella tells of Adeline's life from her birth to age 14, and Falling Leaves tells of Adeline's family history and her entire life until both of her parents' deaths. In both of her memoirs, Adeline faces the tragedy of meeting a new stepmother who starts to treat her as an outcast and manipulates her father against her. She tolerates the discrimination between herself and her half siblings, as well as the physical and verbal abuse from her real siblings. But through all of the hurt, she continues to live her life with the support of her Aunt Baba and grandfather. The only peace that Adeline finds in her life is her extraordinary writing ability. Since she doesn't exactly have the perfect life, her imagination helps her create a world full of all her dreams and accomplishments that she molded into the stories she wrote. She never planned to reveal anything of her painful life, so she wrote of all types of characters that she imagined herself as, and lived through them. She wrote of female warriors, princesses, and all kinds of characters that resemble her personality. Falling Leaves tells of Adeline's many misfortunes in her life. Everything that happened to her, good or bad, molded her character into a wonderful, hard working individual. With all of the tragedies that Adeline endured, Falling Leaves had left me with the impression that all of those tragedies shaped Adeline's entire perspective on life and moral being. Just reading this book made me believe that anything is possible if you just put your mind to it and not let anything stop you. It felt good to read all that happened to her and see how much of a success she's become.

-Arieta Augafa

Interesting, not good or bad

Admittedly this is a well written book although occasionally a bit melodramatic. I suspect she exaggerated at times, such as when she talks about her older sister and stepmother but overall I enjoyed it. It contained much of the fascinating history of the Cultural Revolution and of her family and was hard to put down. It told the story of how Adeline and her siblings went to college in England and made her way into the world as a doctor. It also contained the mystery of the search for her father's will and the hatred among her siblings and stepmother. I find it amazing that she endured so many hardships throughout her life, even after she left China. Personally, I liked the book before Falling Leaves, Chinese Cinderella. However this book is interesting and captivating in it's own way. I liked the way she described her family's dysfunction and how she felt about it. She writes as good as any author, even if English wasn't her first language. However I think she may have portrayed her stepmother and her sister a bit harshly. Furthermore, she concentrates on the family she had not the family that she creates. She only mentions her children a few times, and talks mostly about her siblings and Niang. In my opinion I wish she had talked about her husband and children more. Moreover, it was a bit boring at times, like when she tries to explain the relationships between her and her siblings. Overall, this book is interesting but not spectacular. If you like this book I would recommend The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, Maximum Ride by James Patterson, Name Me Nobody by Louis Ann Yamanaka, The Devil's Arithmetic, and The Last Thing I Remember.

The Touching Story told by Adeline Yen Mah

This book made me feel sorry for the main character Adeline, but I am also relieved that my stepmom does not treat me the same. I also felt as though I wanted to find a way to bring Adeline out of the book and escape all the misery. As I read Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah, I seriously wanted to punch Niang in the face. I thought that Adeline Yen Mah had great word choice to show how her step mother treated her so badly. In the part where Adeline is getting scolded for going to her friend's house, she recreated the memorable story of that event in her childhood in a way that made her mother sound so cruel. As she walks into her room to pretend that she has just come home from school and not from her friend's house, she comes face to face with her stepmother. I really liked how she used the words "face to face" this because I could picture it in my head. I can imagine if I walked into my room knowing I did something naughty and my mom was right their glaring at me. She would yell at me and I might actually start crying.
I loved the story that Adeline told in Falling Leaves, but I do prefer the shorter version, Chinese Cinderella better and I think that it is a more reasonable choice for a reader my age. Basically, I thought that the sentences in this book were just extended sentences from Chinese Cinderella. Some of the words were difficult for me to understand on my own, and I had to ask my mother what they meant. For example, in the same part, when Adeline gets in trouble, she says, "the inquisition went on interminably." With my short vocabulary range, I looked at the word and thought, "WHAT?" In fact, my teacher ending up telling me the meaning to interminably. I found out that it means "on and on" or "endless." Overall, I think that this is touching story to read, but I recommend it for adults. If you're a teenager and would like to read this book, read Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah.

This is AMAZING

This is an amazing book. I loved it. I truly felt the sadness of her. Her child hood was so sad, and her stepmom was terrible. I have also read the book "Chinese Cinderella" It is about her childhood.
And clearly the user AHappyProudMom didnt read that book. And she doesnt understand the sadness she felt. She wasent whiny, that is actually what happened. Read "Chinese Cinderella" and it will be more clear about how hard she had it

Excellent book, couldn't put it down.

This was a beautifully written book and very educational from a historical standpoint as well. I love books about triumph against all odds and this definetly fits the bill. The only thing that I was a little disappointed in was that I really didn't feel that Adeline's stepmother got what was comming to her. I really wanted to see her suffer the way she made so many around her suffer. Does that make me a spiteful person? I don't know- but I'll bet I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Adult images of a childhood not forgotten

Adeline retells her story beautifully. This had to be a painful journey for her to take reliving her story in words to an unknown audience. The healing process and her will to endure and accomplish her goals is a "heads-up" to all that read her story. The only thing that would have helped this story was a small map of the areas in which she lived in China. This would have given a better prospective of her homeland

I Bet Her Life Isn't Half As Bad As Her Book

What monotonous drivel this was! Every page is a brand new pity party. I am glad it was a quick read, because I don't think I could have taken even one more day of it. Adeline isn't a victim. She is a glutton for punishment and that is what I began to feel like by page 200.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Fate wins overall

This book is totally enjoyable and especially since it is based on real life and not fiction.

Shows that if you stick to your goals and are willing to sacrifice you will ultimately be able to do your dreams/goals will be realized.

Feel this should be required reading for high school girls as an example of hardship and the ultimate results of hard work.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.