A Map of Paradise

by Linda Ching Sledge

Book Overview

The acclaimed author of Empire of Heaven, praised by The New York Times as a Chinese Gone With the Wind, now creates a colorful and intimate fictional portrait of 19th-century Hawaii. Working in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553378902
• ISBN13: 9780553378900
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Paradise wasn't easy

Having lived in both Hawaii & the Sacramento area, I enjoyed the local history through the experiences of a Chinese immigrant family struggling to build a better life in the Western states. Will view the levees around Sacramento with new eyes!

Don't Let the Title Deter You

This is a fine novel, in my opinion. The title is bland and can give one the impression that they are about to read an annotated atlas or something. Regardless, after reading the first dozen pages or so you will get a real feel for this book. As the published reviewer notes, it adheres to historical accounts exceptionally well. This novel could be read by both older adolescents with good command of language and adults. Its use of local color (California, Hawaii) is also exceptional and while some stock characterization is done, overall the effort is quite literary. I found it to be solid historical fiction of a sort. So ignore the knee-jerk PC reviewer who couldn't get past the cover (by the way, just where is that Yalie she's talking about?) and give it a try. If the plot doesn't hold you, you are likely to become better informed on Hawaii's colonial period.

good

very goo

Colonial crap

This is the kind of book you can judge just by looking at its cover. The poor oppressed Asian female falls in love with a beautiful Aryan Christian colonist from Yale. Why don't we just e-instate slavery while we're at it. How could anyone glorify the oppression of the colored people of the earth? Either they hate themselves, or they were just out to make a buck. Maybe both.