The Last Rose of Shanghai - Weina Dai Randel

AUTHOR: Weina Dai Randel

GENRE: Historical Fiction

RATING: 2.8 stars

In a Nutshell: First half pretty good, second half is a cheesy, corny mash. Offers a decent look at Shanghai during WWII, but the romantic relationship overshadows the war story.

Story Synopsis:

1940, Shanghai. Twenty-year-old Aiyi is the owner of a successful night club. Rich and beautiful, she appears to have firm control over her life, but she knows her future path. She is engaged to another rich Chinese, and she knows she'll be expected to give up her business and settle into the life of a glam wife. When a young German Jewish refugee named Ernest Reismann joins her club as a pianist, her life changes, her dreams change. But can she change her future, risking it for an impoverished refugee who'll never be accepted by her people? Add to this the increasingly unstable local environment, thanks to the Japanese occupation. How will life turn out for Aiyi and Ernest?

The story comes to us from the first person perspective of Aiyi and the third person perspective of Ernest, with brief interludes from Aiyi in 1980.

Where the book worked for me:

😍 While still a WWII story, the plot offers a perspective not usually seen in this genre: that of the Japanese-occupied Chinese and the refugee Shanghai Jews. It was enlightening to learn about this aspect of WWII.

😍 Often, stories of struggle are written from the point of view of middle class or impoverished characters. Aiyi being rich gives us an angle not often seen in historical fiction: that of a wealthy young heiress who does her best to be independent despite the constraints of her time and location, and at the same time, being proud of her financial status and beauty.

Where the book left me with mixed feelings:

😐 There are quite a few metaphorical bits that seem to take inspiration from Chinese sayings. These were thought-provoking. But as the rest of the book was straightforward in its writing, these felt forced in.

😐 Aiyi isn't a likeable character. While she should have been inspirational by virtue of being a successful business owner in a patriarchal world, she is shown as selfish, judgemental, and short-sighted. She doesn't shy away from flaunting the rewards of her wealth, and looks down on those who are careless about their appearance. This adds a nice challenge to the story: how to be patient with a character who gets on your nerves. The book can be called a coming-of-age story, with Aiyi's character as the lynchpin.

😐 While the plot reveals a lot about Shanghai history and culture, it also contains a lot of stereotypes about China. The only person to see Shanghai in a positive light was Ernest. From Aiyi, all we get is cliches.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

😒 The story has too many indecisive characters who are made to abruptly change their minds in order to alter the direction of the story. It felt like a lazy way of adding twists to the plot. Characters go randomly from good to bad to good to bad, relationships switch randomly been on and off and on and off,…

😒 I'd have loved less focus on the romantic angle and more on the social angle. The romance was too instant to be believable. 

😒 There's too much of telling in the writing and yet, many important details aren't told. Time jumps happen like nobody's business.

😒 There's a secret in the book. You can guess the big reveal at least 30-40 chapters before it happens. (The book has 92 chapters!)

😒 There's only one Japanese guy who keeps harassing them almost throughout the book. Seriously, only one. Every time. No matter what the scene or location.

😒 One of the chapters contains a few paragraphs in excruciating detail about Japanese torture of prisoners; this is very gruesome to read. What bugs me is that this sequence has absolutely no bearing on the main plot. It's just that one character goes to that location, we get a few paragraphs of horrifying information, and the character is out. What was the point of that segment? Just to create some kind of impact of the brutality? It felt so out of place!

😒 There are many more grouses I have but all of those would require leaking of spoilers. So just know, quite a lot of silly things happen in the second half, events that make no sense at all! Too many ad hoc alterations and exaggerations. The second half messed up all the good feelings created in the first 50%.

Basically, while I did enjoy some aspects of the book, the second half came straight out of a bad television soap. (Ekta Kapoor's shows, my Indian friends.) The writing is too convenient, the characters are mostly hackneyed, and the only redeeming factor about the romance is the unusual Jewish-Chinese combo.

A skippable book. Read if you must, move on if you can. (Also note, this is an outlier review. So feel free to ignore all I said and give this a go. A majority of readers loved this book.)

4 stars for the first quarter, 3.5 for the second quarter, 2 stars for the rest. Hence averaged to 2.8 stars.

My thanks to The Last Rose of Shanghai and NetGalley for the DRC of “Lake Union Publishing”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.