{"id":49159,"date":"2022-03-24T11:12:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T15:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=49159"},"modified":"2022-03-22T10:39:03","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T14:39:03","slug":"forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/","title":{"rendered":"Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In her first historical novel, Vanessa Hua (A River of Stars<\/em><\/a>, 2018) draws on 20-plus years of experience as a journalist covering Asia and the diaspora to reclaim a few of the \u201cmillions of impoverished women who have shaped China in their own ways yet remain absent from the country\u2019s official narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1965, Mei Xiang, 15, is chosen for a prominent dance troupe. As the youngest daughter in a village family, she\u2019s learned to silently observe others, a skill that, ironically, gets her noticed. When Mei travels to Beijing to \u201cserve the Party,\u201d she lands in the deified chairman\u2019s bed the very first night. \u201cPeasant\u201d she may be, but Mei holds the pedophilic septuagenarian\u2019s attention longer than most. She\u2019s coached to challenge the subversive president, who is clearly attempting to usurp the chairman\u2019s power with capitalist threats; her success could influence the country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Addressing an unknown \u201cyou\u201d as San Francisco\u2019s Chinatown cheers the chairman\u2019s 1976 death, Mei reveals \u201ca reckoning that\u2019s long overdue.\u201d Hua\u2019s 15-year journey of research and writing deftly proves that \u201cfiction flourishes where the official record ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

YA\/General Interest<\/b>: Today\u2019s #MeToo-aware generation should connect with great empathy to this patriarchy-controlled teen.<\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>: “Fiction,” Booklist<\/em>, March 15, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Young Adult, Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her first historical novel, Vanessa Hua (A River of Stars, 2018) draws on 20-plus years of experience as a journalist covering Asia and the diaspora to reclaim a few of the \u201cmillions of impoverished women who have shaped China in their own ways yet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,21,6,6535,31],"tags":[84,6608,6668,58,128,10197,24,51,13,216,39,598,7061],"class_list":["post-49159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-chinese-american","category-fiction","category-repost","category-young-adult-readers","tag-betrayal","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-coming-of-age","tag-cultural-revolution-in-china","tag-forbidden-city","tag-historical","tag-identity","tag-love","tag-mystery","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-sexual-violence","tag-vanessa-hua"],"yoast_head":"\nForbidden City by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In her first historical novel, Vanessa Hua (A River of Stars, 2018) draws on 20-plus years of experience as a journalist covering Asia and the diaspora to reclaim a few of the \u201cmillions of impoverished women who have shaped China in their own ways yet...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-24T15:12:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-22T14:39:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/03\/Forbidden-City-Vanessa-Hua-BookDragon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"627\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"953\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist] - BookDragon","og_description":"In her first historical novel, Vanessa Hua (A River of Stars, 2018) draws on 20-plus years of experience as a journalist covering Asia and the diaspora to reclaim a few of the \u201cmillions of impoverished women who have shaped China in their own ways yet...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2022-03-24T15:12:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-03-22T14:39:03+00:00","og_image":[{"width":627,"height":953,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/03\/Forbidden-City-Vanessa-Hua-BookDragon.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/","name":"Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-03-24T15:12:55+00:00","dateModified":"2022-03-22T14:39:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/forbidden-city-by-vanessa-hua-in-booklist\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49182,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49159\/revisions\/49182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}