China Dolls by Lisa See

I picked up China Dolls because I had enjoyed Lisa See's breathtaking novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan set in the exotic world of traditional nineteenth-century China, and the more recent Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy, which chronicle the lives of two sisters caught up in China's perilous leap to modernity. In China Dolls, three women of Asian descent but very different backgrounds become friends as they struggle to work as nightclub and stage performers in San Francisco in the years just before and during World War II. Personally, although the book was interesting as light reading material, I didn't find it to be as richly detailed or emotionally satisfying as the other novels.