Daughters of Shandong
by Eve J. Chung
read by Yu-Li Alice Shen
Books on Tape, 2024. 11 hours, 7 minutes.
Review written July 3, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Daughters of Shandong tells the harrowing tale of a mother and her daughters caught in the crossfire of the Communist Revolution in China after World War II.
Hai, the oldest daughter, tells how her mother’s life was difficult even before the Communists. Because she hadn’t borne any daughters to her husband, the honored son of a wealthy land-owning family, her mother-in-law made her life miserable, working her from dawn to dusk and forcing her to kneel for hours as punishment for her many imagined failings. So when they get warning that the Communists are coming, Hai’s mother and sisters are left behind, supposedly to protect the land, but with no way to do so.
Since her father and grandfather are not there for the Communists’ renunciation, Hai must take their punishment and almost dies after the ordeal. So her mother leads them to Qingdao, where they learn their family has already fled to Taiwan. For them to follow is tremendously difficult, needing connections and ingenuity. They live as refugees in Qingdao and then Hong Kong before finding a way to Taiwan, and all along the way, they learn that things can get even worse than they had imagined – and then even worse than that.
So it’s not an easy tale to listen to. But the author based it on the life of her grandmother, doing tremendous research to fill in the gaps, and overall telling a story of rising against incredible odds. In the end, she shows that yes, even daughters are people of incredible worth, capable of amazing accomplishments.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/daughters_of_shandong.html
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