Reviews

Review Excerpts

St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN) – January 16, 2005
“Honest and touching… Yeh Yeh’s House is a lovely and generous memoir from a woman who grew up eating McDonald’s hamburgers as well as Peking duck. Her book will help Caucasians understand the feelings of otherness among people who don’t look like us and the ways in which American-born children of immigrants must integrate the skeins of their backgrounds. It will resonate with anyone who has felt emotionally lost in a foreign country. And Chao’s beautiful writing will delight you.”
— Mary Ann Grossmann

Minneapolis Star Tribune – December 5, 2004
“Yeh Yeh’s House is a pleasant surprise — a carefully crafted, tough-minded and well-observed memoir that has little patience for the usual cliches… She’s attuned to the complex moments that define both her trip and her heritage, from the threat of Yeh Yeh’s house being destroyed in a fast-growing Beijing to the sadness of an actress who resents the restrictions placed on her art… Her book poignantly captures the frustrations of such constricted living. It also elegantly captures the moments of individuality, all across China, that still manage to break through.”
— Mark Athitakis

BookList – November 1, 2004
“Writing with striking directness and lucidity, Chao chronicles both unexpectedly arduous adventures and life-altering revelations… She exquisitely articulates the hard-won wisdom and the complex emotions inherent in the difficult lives of her kind and resilient relatives, many of whom suffered horrifically during the Cultural Revolution… Utterly unaffected and yet profoundly affecting, Chao’s resplendent tale of unbreakable family ties incisively illuminates the deep meaning of inheritance.”
— Donna Seaman