Set in late 1980s Beijing, Betrayal follows the lives of two best friends at Beijing's top high school. Lotus and Jade, both sixteen years old, share many of the same interests and amicably compete for top ranking in their class. The both live on privileged compounds reserved for the families of high-ranking officials in the Chinese Communist Party. They are known as the "compound kids."
In their junior year Lotus makes the contact of another young girl her age, May May. May May is everything Jade is not: impulsive, direct, adventurous and sexually deviant. But May May also has a broad knowledge of world literature, international pop music and radical thinkers. At first it is a shared appreciation for poetry and politics that attracts Lotus to May May. Later, it is May May's willingness to risk anything, including her dignity, in the pursuit of new experiences. As Lotus begins to spend more time with May May than with Jade, we learn fascinating coming of age stories of three teenage girls in a country where western ideas were newly introduced to them.
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
In their junior year Lotus makes the contact of another young girl her age, May May. May May is everything Jade is not: impulsive, direct, adventurous and sexually deviant. But May May also has a broad knowledge of world literature, international pop music and radical thinkers. At first it is a shared appreciation for poetry and politics that attracts Lotus to May May. Later, it is May May's willingness to risk anything, including her dignity, in the pursuit of new experiences. As Lotus begins to spend more time with May May than with Jade, we learn fascinating coming of age stories of three teenage girls in a country where western ideas were newly introduced to them.
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Used availability for Annie Wang's Betrayal