Brothers was an easy read but sometimes felt epic in it's storyline. Tan and Shento were both at times likable and at other times irritating--in other words, they were real characters with believable emotions, even if some of the story fell into the stuff of Chinese folk tales and legends. I enjoyed the way the author found ways to interlace the lives of these two young men even as they were emotionally and geographically worlds apart. In any other novel these connections would be cheap plot devices and fell utterly contrived, but here they lend the novel an air of epic styling and added something rather than detracting from it.

having spent significant time in China, i can attest to the fact that this books captures the economic, political and cultural conflicts afffecting China today. The tragic tug-of-war between these two brothers over the woman they both love metaphorically captures the love of China held by both the aging Mao revolutionaries and the rising, economically driven middle class. China today remains an enigma for many Anericans. She is a country we should know well and court carefully!