The story of the Peach Blossom Pavilion starts with an elderly Chinese women telling her memoirs to her great-granddaughter. She articulates her childhood, her adolescence and her adulthood, how she was forced to become a prostitute in order to survive.
The plot is interesting; nevertheless there are some language issues that surface every now and then. Also there are many Chinese metaphors to describe sex. For example, metaphors are used like "letting his jade stalk enter your golden gate" and these phrases kept getting repeated.
However, I enjoyed the book and think fans of Memoirs of Geisha sure to be liked to read this book.
My Rating: 3 out of 5
This is the best book I have read recently. The style is unique, the tone is witty, the characters are really entertaining and the plot kept me on the edge of my seat. I can't think of any other book that so cleverly tells the story as Stroud has done with this series. It’s written from the third person perspective for the young boy Nathaniel and the first person perspective for the superior Djinni, Bartimaeus. The footnotes that can be found in Bartimaeus chapters greatly enhance the story with humorous remarks. It may sound tedious to read a bit, jump to the bottom for the footnotes and then carry on back up top. But Stroud has done it masterfully and these footnotes add magic to the book. They actually bring out a whole new aspect to Bartimaeus' character. I’m not enamored with the protagonist, Nathaniel, but I actually really like that he isn’t a self-sacrificing noble boy. Instead he is a selfish, arrogant, and ambitious apprentice. It’s g...

Comments
Post a Comment