Status Updates From Last Boat Out of Shanghai: ...

"On Nanjing Road, Avenue Joffre, and other commercial streets, Bing was surprised to see newly arrived American soldiers grabbing the arm shafts of rickshaws and taking their drivers for rides yelling, 'Yahoo!' Ah Mei reported that this strange ritual was repeated with nearly every fresh batch of Yankees, who paid rickshaw drivers unheard-of sums for the privilege of pulling them.

A fascinating, searing, and emotional book with a gut-punch of a twist at the end. The author’s empathic retelling of her subjects’ stories and human insight into their inner lives and thoughts makes this book required reading for all those who crave to understand this critical time in history from the perspective of those who actually lived it. A book the left me with awe.

This book is very disconnected/disjointed so far. The switches between character narrations are abrupt and sometimes information is unclear or repeated to try to connect the reader back to a prior point. The flip flopping is not boding well for this novel.