Customer Reviews

The Snow Leopard of Shanghai

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This is the kind of book you can pick up at 4/$1.00 in bins outside old bookstores and take on planes, trains and buses to pass the time. The author did live in Shanghai in her youth, presumably of Russian descent. So the portrayal of the upper class life, as portrayed in the story of two priviledged twins who escaped the wrath of the workers/peasants in 1917, is well done. But so many pages are simply scribbled as a bodice-ripping filler, between the interesting historical and sociological observations. The extreme class differences in Russia and China, the great restrictions on the women in their social lives, the dangers of the opium trade, the desperate people who became prostitutes, pimps and waiters when they got out of Russia penniless: all of these motley characters are thrown together into an interesting borscht-boiling stewpot.

Yes, at the bin price, you can afford to read it through a rainy night, then return it with complaints and get a refund. ...

I first read the Consul General's Daughter which is the continuation of this book. I was dissapointed, however, with the way this book turned out. The book starts out wonderfully and if it stopped half way through it would have been wonderful. The books continues, though, and completly turns around half way through. Insane things begin to happen that make no sense what-so-ever. I would recommend this book to anyone, if you stop half way through.