Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See

Pearl Chin and her sister May are two modern young women of 1937 Shanghai. They live a carefree life, at home with their parents, earning money as models for calendars and advertisements and enjoying nightlife with their friends. Their world is torn apart when they sold off as brides to the sons of a Chinese-American merchant, as payment for their father's gambling debts. At the same time, Japan invades China, and the girls witness the horrors of war and are themselves engulfed in them. The story follows the girls as they escape to America and join the household of their husbands and their parents, only to find that the older son is a 'paper' son, not a U.S. citizen, so they are in danger of deportation. I found the story more interesting for the picture of Chinese life in Shanghai and 1940's Los Angeles, than for the rather melodramatic and contrived plot. 336 pages.