This is a very special book to me and it was even a coincidence I bought this.
I was at this cafe where they also sold a few used books. This one was among them. I took the book, had a vague idea that I knew the title from somewhere, I read the blurb and I bourght the book. I sat in the café and read. I remember it was raining outside and I was waiting for everyone to be done at their written exams so I could get my computer back. Exhausted, wet and just finished a terrible exam - this book was a good way to forget your bad mood.
I started reading this in June last year.
The thing is with this book that it is very, very, very long and every sentence is important. Jung Chang can explain something important about the government in one sentence and you need to know this information to understand the rest she talks about. Sometimes she talks about something and then she interleave something else - also with one sentence. I don't know how to explain, but I feel uncomfortable with not reading every sentence with extra effort.
That sounds boring, right? Forget it! Despise what I said this book isn't boring!
I spent the next two months reading what I've reached, which is about 1/3 of the book. What I liked was, that when I read a heavy book like this, I feel a need of change and read another (and easier) book. Every time I do that I am certain that the book I leave will end at the on-hold pile. I didn't do it with this. I left it for a week, maybe two and then just continued were I left. It kept keeping me interested and want to read it again.
That said I have now for almost a half year not touched the book. And that makes me sad. I just had too much on mind and then it was long ago I read it the last time - and to be fair I was too focused on reaching my reading challenge for 2014 and I knew that if I started reading this I wouldn't make it. Now a new year has started. I have already reached my goal for January and now I have made a decision:
Addition to reading challenge 2015: Finish Wild Swans.
Yes, that is right. I will have it as a goal to finish this one. I will read it alongside with my other books, because I know it will take me a very long time to be done, but it is so worth it!