What do readers think of The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley? Write your own review.

I liked this book for its information about both Chinese and Japanese cultures and the way women were treated. Eastern Jewel was exiled from China to Japan at the age of 8 and put in a family of strangers. That she even survived this separation from her family is noteworthy. The book is about her entire life, her adventurous nature, her many scrapes and they way she coped with adversity. She was quite promiscuous which was due to the way she was treated by the authoritarian males in her early life.
All in all, I thought it was an interesting read and would recommend the book to friends.

This book was, for me, a difficult read. When I first started to read Eastern Jewel, I wasn't sure if I would finish. The character, a Manchu princess, defied tradition and conventional mores from a very young age. The author has tried to show her to be not just a one-sided "bad" person, but one with some sense of loyalty and love. Her sexual "addiction"; her preference of dressing in men's clothing and her penchant for spying (even as a child) combined to make her an unsympathetic character. It is only at the very end of this book that I find Eastern Jewel a "decent" human being.