What started as a heart-wrenching tale of Taiwan under dictatorship turned into a dull family saga. The book could have been 100 pages shorter, with a more streamlined storyline. However, instead of a compelling narrative, we got less of a story and more of a history lesson, covering Taiwanese events from the 1947 massacre to the SARS epidemic of 2003. The characters and plot merely served as devices to educate the reader about history. The storyline didn't progress naturally; it somehow got lost in the middle and lost its momentum. As a reader, I felt detached—like a passive observer taking note of their uninteresting daily lives —until the book ended abruptly, with no resolution or information about the end of dictatorship in Taiwan.

The book spans five decades, with the last chapter set in 2003. We jump straight from 1982 to 2003, which felt anti-climactic. This massive time skip overlooked the most compelling parts of Taiwanese history, like the first democratic election in 1996.

Overall, it was an okay book. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone