I had high hopes for The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel. High enough that I semi-broke one of my personal rules, which is to avoid World War 2 historical fiction.

Why do I avoid World War 2 books? Because they’re so ubiquitous. Every writer has a World War 2 novel, it seems. And every other war barely exists in literature. It’s just How It Is in book publishing. Once, when perusing the bestseller list for historical fiction, I found five books with “Auschwitz” in the title.

So, why did I check out The Last Rose of Shanghai? It’s begins in Shanghai in the 1930s and spills over into World War 2 and Japan’s occupation of China. Japan’s war on China began in 1937. Some consider that part of World War 2 because it involves aggressive action by Japan. So, like I wrote, it’s a semi-violation of my rule.

But enough of that. What about the book?

The Last Rose of Shanghai Book Review

The book is an alternating narrative. Half of it is first person, half third person. The first person narration comes from Aiyi Shao, a young woman who owns a jazz club in Shanghai. The third person parts involve Ernest Riesmann, a Jewish refugee who’s come to Shanghai with his younger sister to escape persecution in Nazi Germany.

Although unusual, the alternating narrative approach didn’t bother me. Once you realize that the book follows this pattern, you barely notice.

In any case, Ernest can play jazz piano exceptionally. He ends up working for Aiyi, making her club a sensation. Predictably, they fall in love.

This romance is one of the two main sources of tension throughout the story. Aiyi’s got a boyfriend/fiancé already, but it’s an arranged match, and she’s not exactly in love. But her family is traditional and looks down on foreigners. Ernest, being Jewish, comes from a much different culture and is an outsider in the city.

The other main source of tension is Japan’s occupation of Shanghai. This fact provides any number of opportunities for complications to arise in Ernest and Aiyi’s relationship. It also creates gratuitous amounts of hardship for the residents of Shanghai.

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Analysis of The Last Rose of Shanghai

Does all this add up to a good story? In some ways, yes. Certainly, living in an occupied city is awful. Both Aiyi and Ernest experience their share of tragedy. But Randel avoids making the story an atrocity Olympics. The reader finds suffering, but the suffering alone doesn’t take over the story. It felt authentic to me, at least.

What felt a little less authentic was the relationship of Aiyi and Ernest. One moment, they’re ready to spend together forever. But by the end of the next chapter, it’s “We’re too different, it’ll never work.”

This is Randel’s main tool to keep the story moving—toggle the relationship between pure love and forbidden love. I suppose such a relationship, had it existed, would have been awkward at times. But it became a crutch for keeping the story tense. I guess I’d say that Randel went to the well too often with this plot device.

A couple other small issues caught my eye. Like when Ernest operates a bakery to help feed other refugees. At one point he stays at the bakery working for three days. Aiyi begins to wonder if he still loves her. Really? The guy is feeding people with nothing, and she takes that as a lack of commitment?

Also, the wording of the story seemed off at times. As in, some of the word choices just didn’t fit in places. The book also had some flowery strings of adjectives that seemed overdone. Which was too bad because in other places the writing was rather good.

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Who Will Enjoy This Book?

Well, I’ve already written I’m not a great fan of World War 2 fiction. But if you are, then chances are good you’ll like The Last Rose of Shanghai. Especially if you want something from outside of Europe. Jewish people certainly had a terrible time of things in the 1930s and 1940s. So, if you like stories where the Jewish people don’t all end up dead in a concentration camp, this book might look good to you. Another attraction is the setting in Shanghai. In part, books exist to take readers to unfamiliar places, and 1930s Shanghai will be unfamiliar to most readers.

In all, I thought it was a pretty good story that could have been better. I don’t regret reading the book, but neither did I spend all night reading without putting it down.

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