Is it better to grow up poor and then become rich or grow up rich and become poor? In The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel, it is better to be poor and then become rich. If you are born poor you’ll know how to survive, whereas if you’re born rich and then become poor you won’t know how to feed yourself. The Last Rose is about the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in WWII. The story starts with an American filmmaker in a hotel in Shanghai in 1980 Shanghai, China meeting the millionaire businesswoman Aiyi Shao. Aiyi then tells the filmmaker the story of Shanghai housing many Jewish refugees who fled from German-occupied Europe during WWII. Before the occupation, Aiyi is a wealthy heiress running a jazz club. Then she meets Ernest Reismann who is one of the penniless Jewish refugees. He’s a piano player and connects with Aiyi through music. Aiyi makes multiple complex decisions that have consequences for a lot of different people. She has wealth, loses it all, and then gains it again. She’s quite the character! The ending had a twist which was good closure. There’s nothing rosy about the story, but the writing is incredible. There were so many characters I didn’t like and I felt like I was in the story which says a lot about the storytelling. I already requested her earlier book, The Empress of Bright Moon. I can’t wait to enjoy more of the colorful, emotional writing.
If you are looking for an indigenous author to support in November, then This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger has a great historical fiction read for you. Krueger is a member of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe ) tribe. This dialogue between a bit so likable character Jack and the teen narrator Odie will give you a good idea of the story. “Ask me, God’s right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It’s all connected and it’s all God. Sure this is hard work, but it’s good work because it’s a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.” Jack in Chapter 20. Odie then replies with his theory about how “God is a tornado.” which refers back to when a tornado killed a loving teacher, Mrs. Frost. The book was originally published in 2019 and is great as an audiobook coming in at 14 hours and 19 minutes on regular speed versus 464 pages of hard copy. ...
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