Reading this story of lives left in limbo by the repressive social circumstances of Cultural Revolution China, I began to get that sensation of frustration that I normally feel when I sense my emotions being manipulated for melodramatic effect. Except that I don't think that this book was especially manipulative; rather it's a quiet, likely truthful account. Still, I kept wanting to yell at the characters to break out of their stifling society, even though I know that this would realistically never have occurred to them, or been feasible if it did. So this was culturally informative, but not really enjoyable to read. I did like the eventual shift though: we spend the whole book seeing cultural chains, but eventually we see personal human ones as strong or stronger (and much much more universal). It is this very worthwhile observation that bumps the novel up to a full three stars.