"Chinese Cinderella" by Adeline Yen Mah

4 of 5 stars.

The Basics: This short, but intriguing novel follows the story of Adeline Yen during her childhood in Tianjin, China. I read the book last month so many of the smaller details have escaped me (which irks me, but the busiest time of the year has commenced-the beginning of a new school year). Adeline considers herself the “Cinderella” of her family because her mom died after giving birth to her and her father and siblings (specifically her older sister) seem to harbor some resentment towards her. Her father, a rich business man, remarried quickly after their mother died and treated her five stepchildren like… stepchildren (eek!). Adeline chronicles her story of a father who didn’t care what happened to her, being placed in a boarding school with little to no visits from her family, being separated from her aunt and grandfather which are the only two family members who cared for her well-being, and struggling to not follow the same fate as her older sister who was married off.

My Thoughts: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At first, it seemed like something I would never read. This novel was part of the summer reading list for the eighth graders at my school. I read the book to become familiar with the novel so I could grade my students’ papers accordingly. I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought which lets me know that I need to expand my genre interests.

I will say this, in the beginning I thought Adeline was being a little too self-defeating. It seemed as though her stepmother disliked all of her stepchildren, not just Adeline. As I continued to read, it became painstakingly obvious that Adeline’s father could care less about Adeline. He didn’t even know her birthday. He was Ok with the decisions made by his new wife in dealing with her stepchildren. She treated her two children exponentially better than her stepchildren. I would like to know what happened to Adeline’s aunt, her brothers, and even her older sister after Adeline went away to college.

Remember, teachers read fun stuff too!