Book Review

February Flowers

February flowers is a book written by Fan Wu.

Fan Wu grew up on a state-run farm in southern China, where her parents were exiled during the Cultural Revolution. Her debut novel, February Flowers, has been translated into eight languages, and her short fiction, besides being anthologized and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, has appeared in Granta, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Wu holds an M.A. from Stanford University and currently lives in Santa Clara, California.

Set in modern China, February Flowers tells the stories of two young women's journeys to self-discovery and reconciliation with the past. 
Seventeen-year-old Ming and twenty-four-year-old Yan have very little in common other than studying at the same college. Ming, idealistic and preoccupied, lives in her own world of books, music, and imagination. Yan, by contrast, is sexy but cynical, beautiful but wild, with no sense of home. When the two meet and become friends, Ming's world is forever changed. But their differences in upbringing and ideology ultimately drive them apart, leaving each to face her dark secret alone.

On its surface February Flowers is a swift coming of age tale about an obsessive friendship between opposites at a college in Guangzhou,China. Ming is shy, naïve, bookish and new to city life while Yan is bold, wild, magnetic and eager to corrupt. But beneath the surface tension and attraction between these two memorable young women is a story about contemporary China and the push and pull between tradition and modernity, communism and capitalism, constraint and freedom.

Insightful, sophisticated, and rich with complex characters, February Flowers captures a society torn between tradition, modernity and freedom. It is a meditation on friendship, family, love, loss, and redemption and how a background shapes a life.

February Flower is a fresh, original work that strikes a fine balance between intimacy and restraint, and shatters several stereotypes along the way.The author's control of her subject matter is impressive, capturing perfectly the claustrophobia and obsessive passion that youthful friendships can assume...The novel's ultimate appeal, however, lies in the universality of its themes-the pain and pleasure of growing up, and the discovery of sex and the accompanying wonder and fear.An original and unforgettable story. Just like the flowers referred to in the title, Fan Wu's novel is brimming with passion, vitality, and hope.
In the end of the story, readers will be left wondering what will come next in the lives of Ming and Yan, as they both continue to search... for truth, for themselves, and even for each other.