Rating: 
Summary: An oddly dreamlike memoir
Review: Red Azalea is not difficult to read - it is a book easily consumed in one or two sittings. However, when it comes to the digestion of what's been read, that's a different story altogether. Red Azalea is the story of the author's childhood under China's Cultural Revolution, but tackled with seemingly simple language that manages to impart complicated undercurrents of meaning to the reader. Min has stated in interviews that she admires the painting style of Henri Matisse, and that her writing style is a reflection of that simplicity and naivete. Red Azalea tells Min's story from elementary school where she is a good communist leader right off the bat, to her time spent at a farm where she has a relationship with her supervisor, to being chosen to star in a film version of one of Madame Mao's operas, Red Azalea. I found Min to be inaccessible, and the memoir difficult to ground in reality; however, this did not prevent me from enjoying the book and being vastly educated by it. The tone of the book was almost otherworldly, perhaps because of the lack of everyday details that would somehow anchor the events. I found myself often glancing back at the cover of the book, as if to remind myself that this was indeed nonfiction. Red Azalea is quite different from any book I've ever read: a memoir both complicated and simple, a plot both clear and elusive. Recommended for a challenge where you'd least expect one.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredible
Review: Red Azelia is the most poetically accurate account of life, love, and sexuality in Chinese culture to date. From western sensibilities, the relationship between the narrator and Yan seems a little strange until one realizes that there is a fundimental difference in Chinese and western views on sex, sensuality, and physical/emotional fulfillment. To a westerner, the relationship seems to have not been entirely satisfying for the two people involved. However, in the cultural framework in which it occured it must have been deliciously satisfying for the two participants. The book shows the results of the Chinese (both Mainland and Nationalist) tendancy to marry much later than westerners. Few women marry before 25 and few men before 30. For women, sexual relationships before marriage are devestating if future husbands are aware of them. As a result, may women turn to each other for physical intimacy (as opposed to men visiting prostitutes for the same purpose). This book places this cultural tendency in the context of another cultural disaster in China: The Cultural Revolution. I can not recommend this book too highly, especially for people who have a vested interest in understanding sexual aspects of Chinese culture that most Chinese are unwilling to discuss openly. One must also understand that sensual expression between two people of the same sex is not viewed as negatively in Chinese culture as it is in the west. It is common to see two women waling hand in hand or see two women dancing in the clubs (often quite sensually).
Rating:
Summary: Heart Wrenching view of Communist China
Review: The author reveals much about Communist China's impact on family life, self esteem and the will to survive. It's incredible to think these atrocities occured in our lifetime. They seem so distant until you read this book. This account brings the realities of the harsh Chinese lifestyle to light and make you feel grateful to be residing in the United States.
Rating: 
Summary: A great memoir destroyed by writing style.
Review: The story and her experience was very interesting, at times enthralling. However, at times, usually the most critical, her writing style would fall very short of what one wanted. Describing a very intimate, vivid experience in short, basic sentences grew old with me very quickly. I hope maybe her writing, and perhaps her relationship with her editor, has grown over time, as I am going to check out her other books.
Rating:
Summary: One woman among hundreds of millions
Review: The story of a woman coming of age in Communist China. A must-read for anyone who has ever wondered what it's like to be an ordinary person in that society. Brief moments and small details show hints of the whole picture: a brother named "Space Conqueror," a tender moment in bed with a lover who says, "Let's do a self-criticism," a mother who is punished for bad calligraphy. Following the author as she grows through childhood accepting Maoist tenets with all her heart, into a young adulthood within a system that denies every bit of individuality, we see the inhumanity of the world she lives in. Her endurance and ability to survive as a part of the machine, and a despised part at that, are astounding. The simple, stark language is not to everyone's taste, as is clear from previous reviews. To me, it was the right way to tell the story of a few moments of activity among days upon years of drudgery.
Rating:
Summary: shows the inside of a culture quite different
Review: This book is well written and shows someone living in a political and social climate very different than ours; it does a good job showing how the author felt as she starts by believing in the Cultural Revolution and as her experiences progressed grew dissolusioned and bitter. It shows the true emotions and attitudes of someone living through this time period on the inside. I disagree with the reviewer who believes the China of today is much the same; I am visiting China right now and it is much changed.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting and compelling book.
Review: This is a wonderful book. Ms. Min keeps you turning the pages because you want to learn more about her characters and where they are going. She really makes you care about these people. She describes well what it was like to live in China during the Cultural Revolution. As an avid book reader who has found many flawed books, I must say that not only is this NOT one of them, it has become a favorite.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting if somewhat fanciful Cultural Revolution account
Review: This is an interesting work of fiction set during the Cultural Revolution. Although the action that takes place in it is a bit difficult to believe, it does make for a good yarn. I had just finished reading an excellent book of stories set in the Cultural Revolution, "White Snake and Other Stories" by Geling Yan and saw the movie based on one of Yan's stories directed by Joan Chen -- both Yan and Chen are contemporaries of Anchee Min -- and was hungry for more. It is amazing the variety of experience and perception thereof that occurred during this period.
Rating:
Summary: Sex, Violence, Love...it's all here!
Review: This is the true story of one woman's life from the daily stuggle for survival in a Chinese work camp to the mysterious theatre work in Mme. Mao's operas. This book should be made into a movie.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbingly Beautiful.
Review: This story is beautifully written and compelling to the extreme. Freedom is a gift that I personally often take for granted. I learned so much from this book about a culture so different from ours, that it made me very sad to think that this was real and not fiction.
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