The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai by Ruiyan Xu

Oh, I wanted to love this book. It's the story of Li Jing who survives an explosion at a hotel in Shanghai, but suffers a head injury that robs him of his ability to speak Chinese. The condition is called Broca's aphasia, and the hospital is forced to hire an American doctor who specializes in bilingual aphasia. The concept grabbed me immediately not only because I love the setting, but because I previously worked as a speech pathologist. My favorite assignment was at a head injury clinic. I looked forward to learning more about this type of aphasia.
Although I think this book had great potential, the only thing that I really loved about it were the descriptions of Shanghai. The two things that I didn't like about it were the characters and the ending. I won't give away the ending, but I will say that I was frustrated with how it just dropped off. The characters were difficult to care about overall, but I could not stand the American neurologist. This patient needed a specialist enough that the hospital was willing to bring one in from America, but she revealed that she had "limited expertise in rehabilitation...and spoke no Chinese at all." Oh yeah, and she was drunk when she applied online. She wanted to get away from her bad divorce so she went to Shanghai. As the story went on she did a lot of partying and decided that it's okay to get involved with your patients. Li Jing and his wife, Meiling, also got on my nerves. They were both so self-involved, and I didn't feel that they were doing much in the interests of their son. As far as learning more about aphasia...I don't feel like I got much. This was a disappointing read. I would give it between a 2-3. 

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama

I finally pulled this one off the shelf and I am wondering what took me so long.  I read The Samurai's Garden a while ago and loved it. Maybe I was worried that it would be a disappointment. Whatever the reason for the delay, it was exactly what I was in the mood for this last week.
The story is about two orphaned boys brothers being raised by their grandparents during WWII. One has the dream of becoming a sumo wrestler and the other wants to become an artist. We follow their lives through the war and into adulthood. I was fascinated by the descriptions of Noh theater mask making. This was a part of the culture that I knew very little about.  However, I think the most interesting thing was the story of Japanese civilians who lived through the events of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I admit that I didn't like some of the characters at all, however, I loved Kenji and was rooting for him throughout the book. Yes, this is a tragically sad book, but it also is a story of rebuliding. I would recommend it for readers who want to learn more about Japanese culture. For me it was a 5/5.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

This was a book that I hadn't planned on reading. I haven't been in the mood for nonfiction and the idea of reading about biology just didn't grab me. However, a friend of mine bought a copy of the book, and her excitement about it got me interested. Once I actually picked it up (and I felt this way just from the prologue), I knew what the hype was about.  This is a fascinating story.
It's the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman who unknowingly contributed cancer cells that became vital to the development of vaccines and scientific research. Her cells, the HeLa cells, are still used today. They were the world's first immortal human cells. There is a lot of science in this book, but Rebecca Skloot does an excellent job of making it easy to understand and incredibly interesting. She also tells the story of Henrietta's life and family history which has been pretty much unknown.
This is probably the best nonfiction book that I have read. Rebecca Skloot did an impressive job of finding buried information about Henrietta's life as well as her medical history. She states in the beginning that "no names have been changed, no characters invented, no events fabricated". She has given us a beautiful and important book. Loved it. 5/5