Dreams of Joy, Lisa See

This novel picks up the story of two sisters living in Shanghai during the WW2. In this book, Pearl goes back to China to find their daughter Joy, who has gone to find her father, and to work in a communist commune. It is an unflinching account of life in China and of Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward, when government mandates created a severe, devastating famine. It is a story of the love of the mother and daughter, the triumph of the human spirit, and what I can only assume is an accurate picture of life in China at the end of the 1950's. This is a hard to put down book.