The Little Red Guard
by Wenguang Huang
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
86%
Critic Reviews: 9
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- User rating from iDreamBooks & iTunes
Reader Rating
90%
Reader Ratings: 38
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Synopsis
The unbending dictates of Communist China pit one generation against another in this story of a family's fifteen-year struggle to honor a grandmother's final wish.In 1973, when Wenguang Huang was eight, his grandmother became obsessed with her own death. Fearing cremation, she appealed to her family to promise to bury her after she'd died. This was in Xi'an, a city in central China, at a time when a national ban on all traditional Chinese practices, including... more
About Wenguang Huang
Published: April 26, 2012 by Penguin Press
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs, History. Non-fiction. 272 pages
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- All Critics: 9
- Positive: 9
- Negative: 0
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Chicago Tribune | 7 May 2012
Revealing, ironic and effortlessly elegant, Huang's book unpacks the paradox of China through a story about an unusual, and proverbial, Chinese box — a coffin.
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Between The Covers | 1 May 2012
I highly recommend this to anyone who likes reading about other cultures, to anyone who enjoys a good memoir, and to anyone who is interested in learning more about China’s traditional, political, and economic past.
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Publishing Perspective | 30 Apr 2012
The Little Red Guard is by turns intimate and edifying; it makes for a fascinating, enlightening read.
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The Foreign Policy Initiative | 2 May 2012
Despite its heavy subject matter—death and communism—Little Red Guard is an engaging, quick read.
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Bookmarks Magazine | 28 May 2012
Lyrical and poignant, funny and heartrending, The Little Red Guard is the powerful tale of an ordinary family finding their way through turbulence and transition.
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The Washington Post | 15 Jun 2012
The memoir is a fascinating look at unhealthy family dynamics: a wife who resents her husband’s blind devotion to his mother, grandchildren who begrudge their grandmother the sacrifices she forced on them, and a grandmother who blatantly favors her son and eldest grandson.
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Sue's Views | 8 Jul 2012
A different and interesting view of the world, indeed, and a gentle rendering of a Chinese family’s story.
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The Feminist Texican Reads | 26 Apr 2012
I really loved this memoir. It has it all: an unusual premise, straightforward but lovely storytelling, tension, suspense, history, and an in-depth immersion into completely different cultural ideals.
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The Wall Street Journal | 29 Apr 2012
Oddly, "The Little Red Guard" is a very American book. The humor and the angst it contains are built around a dysfunctional family living in cramped accommodations in a big city.
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