Rating: 
Summary: A cunning masterpiece
Review: The Cultural Revolution in China is the setting in which many colorful historical figures became notorious. Min's portrayal of Madame Mao is sure to help Chairman Mao's wife achieve similar stature in the literary tradition. Brilliant for the marriage of apparently contradictory character traits, Min's novel portrays a woman who is a villain and a victim, a seductress and a lonely wife, powerless and powerful at once. A wonderful book for all interested in Chinese history and tradition, strong political figures, and plain old great novels. Very highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Mme. Mao could have taught Machiavelli a lesson.
Review: The woman who became the wife of Chairman Mao was many people before she earned world-wide notoriety for her role in the tragedies of the Cultural Revolution. Her constant reinvention of herself (each time with a new name) adds up to fascinating reading. Author Anchee Min was herself one of the young women plucked from obscurity (a collective farm) by Madame Mao to play heroines in Chinese patriotic films (a story told in "Red Azalea") and she writes that she always found Madame Mao more sympathetic than she is usually represented. Ms. Min must be a very empathetic person, because the Mme Mao we see is scary as hell. After barely escaping having her feet bound, the young Mme. M. begins a life of struggling, scraping, and plotting. She is attracted to the Communist cause, which gives her ambitions a goal she finds compatible with her career as an actress. She forgets no slight, no lover who turned his back on her, no director who didn't cast her, and she gets back at them all once her star rises. She discovers that her own greatest talent lies in manoevering the labrynthine snares of Chinese politics, which puts her intelligence, cunning, and intuition to the test. Politics is her salvation and her downfall. It is difficult to know what name to call her in this review - by the time she became Jiang Jing this brilliant chameleon had taken on so many different personas that perhaps even she was not sure who she was. How can her story be told? Is anything for sure? What can be proved? Anchee Min weaves fact and fiction to create a complex portrait of one of the most intriguing people in recent history. Min learned English as an adult, with an adult's understanding of depth of meaning. Her writing is prickly and interesting, which adds richness to a story about which she has an insider's view. Min's first book, "Red Azalea" was so remarkable that equalling it is a formidable task. "Becoming Madame Mao" is not as satisfying, but it is an excellent inside look at events which are still little understood in the West.
Rating: 
Summary: Ms. Mao...a real demon
Review: This book was a particular disappointment for me, as I had eagerly anticipated reading it and thought the story of the rise and fall of the extraordinary woman Yunhe, the daughter of a concubine who eventually married Mao and hubristically tried to succeed him, was a great story just aching to be told well by someone. Lamentably that someone is not Anchee Min. My singular complaint was the constant shift between the 1st person and 3rd person narrative perspectives. She'd write two or three paragraphs in the 1st person subjective, then abruptly shift to the 3rd person for a couple of paragraphs, then back to the 1st person..etc. After a bit this became so annoying and so off-putting, it almost became a challenge then to even finish the book, and I consider myself an extremely patient reader. The other factor that underwhelmed me was the triteness of the language and the almost cartoonish dialogue Ms. Min puts in her characters' mouths. Some of it is just stultifyingly awful and you're never allowed to really feel anything for any of her people she presents. The whole thing was a terrible letdown and I wish Anchee Min all the best, but I'll still be waiting for someone to do justice to this awe-inspiring story and deliver the real white-boned demon.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: This historical novel puts a human face on the events in China from the Long March through the trials of the Gang of Four in a way that no other book I've read has been able to do. It is vividly written, and months after I finished it, I still recall passages almost word for word. It is a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: A life of constant self-reinvention
Review: This is an impressionist version of the life of the woman who became Jiang Qing, Madame Mao. The point of view shifts back and forth from within the mind of Jiang Qing, to the view of a bystander near to the action, to the view of a historian recounting from a distance in time as well as space. The effect is like a film which uses a hand-held camera with a zoom lens - you get a sense of perspective and detail at the same time. Not every writer could pull this off, but Anchee Min does it. This is a small book, and it assumes that the reader is fairly familiar with the historical drama of Mao's China which Jiang Qing helped direct and choreograph. It is an intimate book, totally focussed on the central character, with the other elements of history and fate revolving around her. Anchee Min succeeds in creating a character for Jiang Qing which accounts for much that seems inexplicable in her many-faceted career as she is in turn the unvalued daughter of an alcoholic peasant , a film starlet, a soldier, a wife and mother, a director of film and stage, and ultimately a dictator whose absolute power corrupted her absolutely. An easy, informative, and absorbing read.
Rating: 
Summary: The white boned demon.
Review: Though Ancee Min's novel is ambitous in its scope, it fails to convey the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. The book best illustrates the bitter rivalry between Jiang Ching and Liu-shao-chi's attractive wife, Wang-Kuang Mei. I have to admit I found this book disappointing because I thought Min's earlier book, Red Azalea, was one of the most moving personal accounts I have ever read. Incidentally, Jiang Ching actually comitted suicide while awaiting execution. She was not executed by the communists as your review claims.
Rating:
Summary: No one was born evil...
Review: Yes, Jiang Chaing was evil at the prime of her career (Anchee Min should know this clearly as she was in a labor camp during the Mai regime and later was recruited by Jiang Chaing for her theatre) - but no one was born evil. This book is not a justification for Madame Mao, but a "histo-fiction" to try to gain some insight into what events and personality traits come together to form someone who can do such awful things. The story is good, and takes you from feeling sorry for her as a little girl trying to escape her mother's fate, to cheering for her to get the acting parts and accomplish her dreams, to being disgusted by her describing how to torture cancer patients to get them to say something incriminating about her more moderate rivals. The book irked me in one sense though. The writing style - switching between first person and third person every few paragraphs (without any pattern!) made it hard to read. Kinda like listening to a good CD that has a scratch. I almost gave up on it in the first few chapters, but in the end, I gritten my teeth and accepted the writing for the sake of the story.
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