As a general trend, I'm not really a fan of reading memoirs, but I really enjoyed reading this one. Ai Weiwei writes in an clear concise way, so I found myself learning a lot about Chinese history and moving quite quickly through the book. I am a fan of contemporary art, and have a foundational grasp/knowledge of his artwork, but I still found myself gaining further appreciation of his works (in particular, 'Fairytale'). I also enjoyed the addition of illustrations in the edition I read. My more pointed criticisms have already been eloquently written by another user in StoryGraph so I will quote their review below as it mirrors my own views exactly. Despite these critisims, I found the book valuable to read and would encourage others to read it.

User: Sahibooknerd's review

"To be fair, Al Weiwei was constructing his artistic identity in communist China, not the Ivy Towers of the American education system, but his writing contains the same thinly-veiled elitism. Which sucks, because his writing is beautiful. His memoir tracks the parallel events of his father’s life (a famous Chinese poet who was exiled to a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution), and his own clashes with authority, which culminated in his 3-month detention in 2011.  The two different stories are supposed to highlight how the memory of government oppression in China has continued ripple effects across generations. Instead, I found myself comparing the two stories, and found that the story of his father held far more emotion and self-awareness than that of his own. 

Weiwei writes in a detached style, which works when he’s writing about a man who withheld many of his emotions and troubled thoughts from his family, and instead poured them into his devotion to his art and his country. But when talking about his own life, I got the sense that he’s never really examined his personal choices or the impact that he has had on the people around them.  He briefly mentions friends, colleagues, lovers, and then rushes on from them (both figuratively and literally. Both Weiwei and his father seem to have played fast and loose with romantic fidelity). He is so filled with scorn for his fellow country-men and their sheep-like tendencies, but doesn’t question the fact that both he and his father were able to fuel much of their artistic livelihoods through loans from their family and the unwavering financial and domestic support of their wives and international friends. 

This could be a cool book if it were trimmed down and focused in more on the history of China’s oppression of the arts... "