Paper Wife: A Novel

I was ready to award five stars until the author condoned murder. I couldn't believe it! A beautiful story of family and love and the horrors that our immigrants have been through. I hate that Americans can easily forget that, unless you're a Native American, your ancestors were immigrants! Hello!! Being a white citizen doesn't mean this country is exclusively yours. I'm thankful I'm an American and hate that any fellow American would prevent others entrance because of race. The story follows a young family to San Francisco from China and their trials. The heroine was extremely impatient and didn't think things through. The H tried to soothe his wife’s brooding and negative feelings, telling her that they had time to find a solution to their problem. Being stupid, the h kills a man and then is frightened her family might suffer from repercussions. Duh! In this story crime pays! Yes! Not only does she get away with cold blooded murder but ends up with a restaurant, her own home and educated children. Happily ever after. The story is good but I'm horrified that this writer thought that was ok for a heroic mom.

It’s slow going and at times kind of boring but if you’re diligent and keep reading it gives you butterflies about hope and love of a mother

loved the story, a cherished author.

I already knew there was no risk involved when I chose this book. I've read a few books by this author. I just didn't know then that I'd fall in love with this family the way that I did. Their ties to one another had me in tears more than once.The main character's story/perspective was eye-opening and intriguing. I feel like I learned so much and was exposed to a culture that I knew so little about. I really appreciate experiences like that.This was an awesome read. I loved everything about it. READ IT!

The story opens with Mei Ling's plight as the second daughter of a poor family in a small village in China. The matchmaker has pledged her older sister to a merchant living in the US. Not only will the sister marry a stranger but she's expected to leave her family and her country to journey to a distant land where she knows no one. And things do not go as planned.Laila Ibrahim paints a wonderful portrait of Mei Ling, her Dragon fire, the prayers she utters every day to honor her family and ancestors. But the harrowing experience of Chinese immigration casts a pall on this strong spirit. There are months of a rocky sea voyage followed by separation on Angel Island from her barely known husband, all taking place in a foreign land whose customs and language are unknown. Most people could not survive. Many did not.Mei Ling's Dragon helps her to weather her predicament. It was satisfying to see her strength and curiosity take command of her environment, to make friends, to foster relationships with her husband and son and others around her and eventually make something of herself. I loved the constant reminders of her Chinese heritage, the footing that helps her build a bridge to her new community. I loved the tenderness that emerges in her husband. She's a fighter, and from that power comes great rewards.

This is a bittersweet story about migrating to the United States from China in the 1920's.Mei Ling is a teenage girl living in the age of civil unrest in her native land and arranged marriages in her culture. The matchmaker comes to arrange a marriage for her older sister but due to a twist of fate, the sisters are switched for the wedding.Marrying a man sight unseen, Mei Ling starts on her odyssey to a new life in America. The story documents the terrible conditions of the trans Pacific voyage and the components of learning her new identity. To get through US immigration, she must pass the test of the identity given her by the matchmaker.It is sad that young girls (school age) are smuggled into the country to live a life of servitude and prostitution. Mei Ling must learn to trust her husband, navigate a new land and culture while not understanding the English language.During the plot of the story, Mei Ling makes a decision to save a young girl from a precarious situation. From a moral standpoint, it is not right but understandable. Thought provoking and emotionally jarring, the novel is worth your time. Keep in mind that there are language barriers among the characters. If you have Audible, use it during these sections. It gives a better understanding of the frustations.

I have read 3 other books by this author and enjoyed each of them. This book grabbed me from the beginning and I struggled to put it down. The characters were so admirable and I lived following their story! Highly recommend !

At 3a.m. I forced myself to bookmark my progress tocontinue after I slept. The characters are excellent; vividly brought to life in this narrative. It is a novelthat begins in China and extends to America with thefictional characters intertwined with cultural and historical facts. It has the joys, heartache nd challenges of life skillfully portrayedfacts.

In 1920s China, 18 year old Lei Ming is forced to become a 'paper bride' - impersonating a dead woman in order to immigrate into the USA with a husband and toddler she's literally just met. On the long voyage across the Pacific, she takes a small girl under her wing, and continues to care for her whilst imprisoned in an immigration centre. But once she's allowed into America the real challenges begin - unable to speak the language, half afraid of the husband who's a stranger, she realises that not all 'paper' immigrants are bound for happy lives and some are being openly exploited. Despite the odds against her, she becomes determined to save the child she met on the boat from being sold into prostitution.It's a great idea for a story and very interesting as it's not something I'd known much about. Although it's set almost a hundred years ago, the topics of immigration - legal, illegal and semi-legal - and the risks of exploitation of vulnerable people lured by the promise of life in a wealthier country - are still very topical. It's sad that all this time later there are still children and adults being 'trafficked' in this way.Lei Ming is a likeable and credible narrator and she is supported by a host of interesting, likeable supporting characters. Its an easy book to get into and well paced. The sense of threat hanging over the head of orphan Siew provides a good source of narrative tension and propels the plot onwards. I found it compelling and satisfying and I would recommend it to readers who enjoy a good story of any kind.

What is a paper wife? A wife that was only on paper and wasn't always the person in reality. Set just after WWII in the USA where men from China when to find a better life, leaving their wife and children back in China. However, the USA put a stop to the Chinese men from bringing their families to join and made it more and more difficult overtime. When Chinn Kai Li's first wife dies he is forced to find a new wife to return with him and his small son. That person was Mei Ling. The women had little or no say in the matter and their families and mediators were paid money for them - isn't that slavery? However, once in the USA the women, sometime children, were kept for months and sometimes years in camps, while the US government official try to prove if they were who they say they were and if they managed to do so, even by trickery, they were put on the next boat back to China and that was it. Many would jump into the ocean rather than to return to their home lands in disgrace.Mei Line was fortunate in that not only did she manage to get through the interrogation, she found herself a good husband, who was prepared to do all that he could to take care of her, and he does.I choose the book firstly because of the cover, with portrays a woman in shadow, covered as if she wasn't really there and the title. I am not a blurb reader, i had no idea that there were such things as a paper wife or indeed a paper son, or daughter. This book is intriguing, well written, and well research, and then dramatised to make a story. i recommend this book.

One of those books that will stay with me, it tells the story of Mei Ling who married a man she didn't know, a man recently widowed and with a young son, so that he could get into America in the 1940s. There she meets little Siew whose paper Uncle is taking her to America for his own unpleasant purposes This book pictures the Chinese culture and charm in beautiful detail and I was sorry to finish it. I wish it could have been much longer.

Having read Laila's other books and loving them, i was afraid to start this one in case i was disappointed. I could not have been more wrong. This book is set in the 1920s,first in China and then in San Francisco. It tell's the story of a ''paper wife'' and her journey from her homeland,her marriage, her trials trying to be accepted into the new world and her trials once she is there. I never knew any of this part of history and it was researched so well and the story was so intriguing. I was rooting for Mai ling the whole way through! I would highly recommend this book. It was just beautiful.

the book started promising, but unfortunately the writer didn't succeed to deliver the story properly. the writing style used is very basic, with short sentences lacking any depth, almost like a it's written by a child.you can see immediatly it is a chinese story written by a non-chinese writer, who's been trying to bring in the chinese spirit but failed.there are episodes in the book that have been treated so superficially - like the one when little girl Siew comes to live in their house after she was working as a servant in a rich household.and there are epiodes that simply doesn't sit well within the story - like the one where the wife murders Suk Suk.the end comes rushed and abrupt. ans by that time i was already skiping pages or paraghraphs.