Startling Moon [Paperback]

Liu Hong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2002

When six-year-old Taotao is sent by her mother to live with her grandparents, her whole world seems to have fallen apart. Only in later years does she learn of her mother's secret pain—her own father's fall from grace in the Cultural Revolution—and come to understand the sacrifice she has made for her daughter. Startling Moon looks back to a past of rich but suppressed tradition, and forward to a very different China. Above all, it is the story of Taotao's quest to know her own heart, and of the blossoming of a passion which will lead her to risk all that she holds dear.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Liu Hong was born in a Manchurian town, and grew up in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. She studied English Literature at University, and worked in Beijing as a translator. Following the events in Tiananmen Square she left China to study in the UK, where she met and married her English husband. She now lives in Wiltshire, with her young daughter.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Headline Book Publishing (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747265097
• ISBN-13: 978-0747265092
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #510,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Chinese girls starting to demand the world, May 13, 2011

By 

Brian Griffith (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Startling Moon (Paperback)

This is part of the great saga of a generation--the generation that came of age in the spring of 1989, discovered love, fear, and connection to the whole world. Liu captures a series of shifts, partly in the Chinese universe, and partly in her own emerging powers. There's the craving for recently suppressed culture, in which memorizing old Tang poems or reading the Dream of Red Mansions seems adventurous rather than traditional. There's the incredible purity and idealism of girlhood, which at first serves as the weapon of old fashioned innocence. Then it turns to a boldness that scorns security, and a different kind of adult appears.