Oh, for a half-star, for this is really a three-and-a-half star read. It's set in Shanghai (not so suprising) between the late 1930s and the early 1940s. When I began the book I couldn't have told you one thing about Shanghai during that period. Now I do. The book is very well researched and is full of interesting things. This does, at times, make it rather a lot of work to keep up with. You need to keep track of a number of characters and the complicated politics. The protagonist is an African American jazz musician, so another theme here is race politics. And jazz, of course. And then there's the major female character who is bound to a gangster for a ten year period in exchange for debt forgiveness for her family. It's a lot to manage and while it remains interesting, I think it becomes a bit slow going at some point. Still, as I said, I learned a lot. And it's reasonably well written. Just perhaps a bit too ambitious? For me this book had kind of a slow start and I had trouble reading it. It is based on fact, and I think the author might have done better to make this non-fiction and give us more detail rather than creating characters that were a little beyond complete.The subject matter is fascinating. Shanghai before and during WW2 is a great topic. She covers the jazz musicians from American that played in the nightclubs, and the Jews escaping from Europe. It is worth reading just for the subject matter.
What do You think about Noć U Šangaju (2014)?
Great book! Interesting story and well written.
—butterfly11
