Four Treasures of the Sky: The compelling debut about identity and belonging in the 1880s American West

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I had to take off 2 stars because of the unrelenting violence and threats of rape that the main character experiences. Bodies surge in the direction of the shark fin voice, knocking and grinding for the promise of a promotion, of rank advancement, of favorability.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Lightning splits the sky into pieces and I think, this is what I look like inside, not a whole, but a many, separated by something I cannot control. Heavy themes are being brought to light in Four Treasures of the Sky: kidnapping, abuse, xenophobia, sexual abuse etc . But when she is kidnapped and smuggled across an ocean from China to America, Daiyu must relinquish the home and future she imagined. But there’s a sense of urgency in this fiction that reads real and the historical context that unfortunately holds true even in present times.Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang is a brutal and unflinching historical fiction novel about a 13 year-old girl who is kidnapped from China and sent to America with other Chinese girls to work in a brothel. Through each transformation and each moment of pure destruction upon her life, Daiyu continues to resurrect like a phoenix, becoming a figure larger than life and walk amongst the myths and legends of the West. I liked the trick of using Chinese folklore to bind the two experiences together and also(despite being a bit stereotypical) that Daiyu fulfils the faiths of her namesake. But the characters fall flat in Four Treasures, and they are not great vehicles for conveying so many stories and emotions. rare is a book that is honest about the dark reality of chinese people's fate in america in the 19th century but still retains such beauty.

This book hurt to read, but it hurts more to know that mainstream American education just omits so much of our worst doings. Expansive and propulsive…Zhang has a talent for immersing readers into a variety of colorful, historical worlds. Lots of description about violence towards Chinese in the 19th century US without much context or some elaboration about the reasons. A dazzling combination of history, unforgettable voice and Chinese mythology that promises much more to come from this bright and devastating new talent. Held captive for more than a year, she is forced to learn English; smuggled inside a bucket of coal on a cargo ship to San Francisco; and sold into prostitution at 14.The aspects of racial violence will have your stomach in knots, Zhang truly delivers a sense of dread and discomfort as she examines how even with best attempts at assimilation, whiteness will play gatekeeper to the point of violence at every opportunity. When disaster strikes and she is kidnapped, she is dispatched to San Francisco and into a new world of suffering and growth. I was so torn about what to rate this book, but my visceral reaction after finishing was that I hated it so I’m going with 2 stars. Four Treasures of the Sky isn’t easy to read but it’s easy to comprehend as one meant to be difficult.