An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge

I'm falling behind on my reviews. I'll try and catch up before the month is over.

I've slowly been reading Yep's Golden Mountain Chronicles this month. I don't think I've ever read them in chronological order. It was fine for the first four because they were written sequentially. Dragonwings has a very different feel from the first four probably because it's at least a decade older than those first books.

The narration style is very different which makes it feel more historical. It also covers a much longer time period than any of the other books.

The book explains a lot and at first it felt like a book written for non-Chinese people. As I was reading though, the explanations felt more like they were necessary for historical reference than explaining Chinese culture.

I do like that Yep italicizes English words and dialogue. It's an easy way to recognize the code switching in the book and normalizes Chinese (as opposed to most books that italicize the "foreign" words).