Namioka, Lensey. Ties that Bind, Ties that Break

This is a book about an upper-class Chinese girl at the beginning of the 20th century who doesn't want to have her feet bound, so her very young engagement ends up getting broken off.

It's really kind of bad. The dialogue is annoying in the extreme; it feels like every character is nothing but a mouthpiece for a political position, and it doesn't sound like anything anyone would actually say. Everyone keeps telling each other things they already know for our benefit:

"I admit the fighting in Hunan and Hubei hasn't spread to our region," Big Uncle said. "But up in the north some of the warlords are getting ready to carve up the country."

Father looked less worried. "The provisional government set up by Sun Yat-sen here in Nanjing seems stable enough. He certainly shows no signs of wanting to make himself emperor."

"It might make our country stronger if he did," grumbled Big Uncle.

What this is is fictionalized history; but you really don't get enough history, and there's not enough story there either, and everything is told at such a distance that it's very hard for me to care about any of the characters.

It's sanctimonious, preachy, and filled with an annoying mix of cardboard saints and villains. One wishes that a book about foot-binding and the encounter between Chinese and American culture would deal a little better with the fact that, even if other countries haven't used foot-binding, the Chinese aren't exactly the only ones that defined status and beauty in terms of things that were likely to cause you pain and restrict your movement.