Seeing her half-sister’s pain and inability to leave their cave, Xing Xing does not mind her place and takes solace in the memory of her calligraphy and composition, skills her father encouraged her to develop when he was alive. While Wei Ping suffers the excruciating pain of her binding, Xing Xing, or “Lazy One” as she is called by Stepmother, is left to care for the household chores. Though she has no dowry, Stepmother is determined to marry Wei Ping off to a respectable man, and so binds her daughter’s feet (though she is much older than the ideal age for initiating the process). After the death of her mother when she was a child, and her father’s recent passing, all Xing Xing is left with is her father’s second wife, Stepmother, and a half-sister, Wei Ping. In Ming Dynasty China, Xing Xing leads a quiet and lonely life. A Chinese retelling of Cinderella?! How could I resist? Why did I read this book: I’ve had my eye on Donna Jo Napoli for a while, and when I saw this title available as an ebook through B&N, I couldn’t resist. In this searing story, Donna Jo Napoli, acclaimed author of Beast and Breath, delves into the roots of the Cinderella myth and unearths a tale as powerful as it is familiar. Xing Xing soon realizes that this greed and desperation may threaten not only her memories of the past, but also her dreams for the future. Even so, Xing Xing is content, for now, to practice her gift for poetry and calligraphy, to tend to the mysterious but beautiful carp in her garden, and to dream of a life unbound by the laws of family and society.īut all of this is about to change as the time for the village’s annual festival draws near, and Stepmother, who has spent nearly all of the family’s money, grows desperate to find a husband for Wei Ping.
Dubbed “Lazy One” by her stepmother, Xing Xing spends her days taking care of her half sister, Wei Ping, who cannot walk because of her foot bindings, the painful but compulsory tradition for girls who are fit to be married. Bound to be alone and unmarried, with no parents to arrange for a suitable husband. Bound to a life of servitude as a young girl in ancient China, where the life of a woman is valued less than that of livestock. Genre: Historical Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Young Adultīound to her father’s second wife and daughter after Xing Xing’s father has passed away.
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