Nilsa's Book Blog: Journey Across the Four Seas, by Veronica Li

Journey Across the Four Seas, A Chinese woman's search for home
By Veronica Li

Release date: November 1, 2006
Published by: Homa & Sekey Books
Genre: Biography, Memoirs, Ethnic & National

Book Description:

This is a true and touching story of one Chinese woman's search for home. It is also an inspiring book about human yearning for a better life. To escape poverty, Flora Li fought her way through the education system and became one of the few women to get into the prestigious Hong Kong University. When the Japanese invaded, she fled to unoccupied China, where she met her future husband, the son of China's finance minister (later deputy prime minister).
She thought she had found the ideal husband, but soon discovered that he suffered from emotional disorders caused by family conflicts and the wars he had grown up in. Whenever he had a breakdown, Flora would move the family to another city, from Shanghai to Nanking to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Taipei and finally across the four seas to the U.S. Throughout her migrations, Flora kept her sight on one goal; Providing her children with the best possible education.

Available at:

Amazon ~ Paperback

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My Review:

I rarely read memoirs or biography books. This book was presented to me by the author and I thank her for allowing me to read and review her book. I enjoyed every page of it, as I journeyed with her mother Flora Li through 1941 China and became a part of her world through the great storytelling found in this book.

Journey Across the Four Seas is a book about a woman who struggled through poverty, war, seperation, diease, failed love and came through with strength and perserverance. Although she goes through alot of hardships, the mood of the book is not sad. Flora's strength and her ability to fight through it all comes through in every line.

This is a book that even people who normally don't read memoirs will enjoy.
The story is of a young woman, Flora Li, who overcomes poverty and the social pressure to find her place in the world. Flora Li is someone we can easily relate to as a friend, mother, grandmother, and sister. Her struggles and triumph is something we see in our own families, and in every generation and every cultural background.

We follow her from childhood to motherhood...hardship to triumph. Against all odds, she continued her education all the way to Hong Kong University during the time the Japanese invaded China. For fear of what the Japanese were doing to the Chinese, Flora escaped Hong Kong for remote locations in China not controlled by the Japanese, and that is when the journey begins....

Beautifully written from a daughters point of view (but narrated in Flora's point of view) about her mothers journey in life.
I highly recommend this book!

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