Feathered Serpent by Xu Xiaobin

I bought this book in the Popular book expo in Singapore.Initially i thought that this book will be about some sort of magical story but once i started reading the first paragraph, i understood that it will be great read.Again  as happened previously i bought this book by instinct, i never heard of this book before.
This is a story of five generations of women .Yu which means Feathered Serpent is  the the last daughter of Ruomu and Lu Chen i.e the fourth generation grows under her grandmother Xuanming and self-obsessed mother Ruomu.The whole story revolves arounf Yu, who is longing for mother's love.Her mother hate her as she choked her brother(the little boy) to death , from that time onwards no one loved Yu in her family except her father Lu Chen.

"Since childhood she had been longing for love - the love of her parents; later, the love of friends. Only love and friendship would be good medicine; nothing else could bring zest to her life."

That starts her life long quest for love and acceptance by his family and others.As a reader we are taken to a labyrinth of problems faced by this family.The story evolves from the late 19th century under the Empress Dowager Cixi to life under Mao Zedong in Communist China.The political background to the narrative extends from the Taiping Revolution in the 1860's up to the years just after Tiananmen.

Yu's love for Yuanguang,Yadan's love for Yuanguang, Yuanguang's life with Xiato.. the love story(ies) continues till their death.I loved the way the author connects everyone, the story behind them. This book have some similarities with "One hundred years of Solitude" by Garcia.. but the writing style is completely different .

Read to enjoy the love...

Some quotes from the book:

"Age is a strange measure of things"

"A human being is a maze. Soul and body -both are part of the maze.A body is the wall of the maze and the soul is  the little path connecting everything to the center.To enter is to live,to leave is to die" 

 "A detached feather is not soaring, but drifting"

"A woman without love loses her beauty" 

"Every family has its own problem" 

"Straight like a bowstring,death awaits;bent like a hook, noble titles will be rewarded" 

"Debasement is the password of the base,Nobility the epitaph of the noble." 

"The worst thing for a woman is that the body ages but the heart remains young" 

"Everyone looks good in someone's eyes" 

" An ugly wife is worth a thousand gold"

other new things :
Lingchi - death by slow slicing also known as death by thousand cuts
Diantiandeng -death by burning while hung upside down.
Guanyin-Goddess of Mercy
Dr.Sun Yat-sen's three principles :nationalism,democracy and people's welfare

About the Author:
Biography