The Library of Legends by Janie Chang
When the Japanese begin bombing the city of Nanking in China, the faculty at Minghua University organize an evacuation to move the students to China's western province, taking the school's prized Library of Legends with them. Halfway through the journey, the three main characters (Shao, son of a wealthy family; Lian, a scholarship student; and Sparrow, a maidservant) split off from the student group to travel to Shanghai, each for their own reasons.
Overall, I was disappointed in this book. Usually I really like historical fiction about lesser known historical events, in this case, the second Sino-Japanese War and China's historic Library of Legends. But too much time was spent on flirtations and political groups within the students, and too little time was spent on the library itself. There is also a magical realism factor where one of the characters is actually a character from one of the legends who has been living on earth for thousands of years. The author also devotes many pages to describing how wealthy and influential Shao's family is, also how elegant and expensive his clothes are, and how much poverty there is in large Chinese cities (yes, we get it, there is a huge gap between rich and poor in China just like there is in the West). There are also too many pages of walking and bombing and hiding, and spending the night at a temple, then a monastery, then a village, then another temple, then a warehouse, then another village, etc. A good editor should have whacked out about 100 pages and made this a much better book. However, the cover art is gorgeous.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC in return for a review.
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