...a powerfully expansive novel ... Across the seven decades and three generations encompassed by the novel, Thien writes with the mastery of a conductor who is as in command of the symphony’s tempo as she is attuned to the nuances of each individual instrument ... [a novel of] remarkable authenticity.
Thien takes this history and weaves it into a vivid, magisterial novel that reaches back to China’s civil war and up to the present day ... a moving and extraordinary evocation of the 20th-century tragedy of China, and deserves to cement Thien’s reputation as an important and compelling writer.
...a beautiful, sorrowful work. The book impresses in many senses: It stamps the memory with an afterimage; it successfully explores larger ideas about politics and art; it has the satisfying, epic sweep of a 19th-century Russian novel, spanning three generations and lapping up against the shores of two continents ... The larger saga unfurls like silk — and proves similarly resistant to knots, a testament to Ms. Thien’s storytelling skills ... Ms. Thien captures painfully well the depersonalization and numbness of living through the Cultural Revolution.
...[an] extraordinary novel ... the book is no worthy historical tract or slice of polemic, but rather a living, breathing organism shaped by its three main characters ... [a] highly suspenseful drama; measured, intoxicating and tragic.
Well-researched and devastatingly beautiful ... Although the intellectual rigor of the books occasionally gets in the way of Thien’s storytelling, Do Not Say We Have Nothing is written with conviction and honesty.
Ms. Thien’s writing is pensive and melancholy, with little tonal variation. Do Not Say We Have Nothing is, nevertheless, a graceful, intricate novel whose humanity threads through it like a stirring melodic line.
Few books I've read are as haunting and powerful as Do Not Say We Have Nothing ... All of the characters ring true in this intricate tale of the girl's extended family and what they endured in China in this century ... conveys how family loyalty feeds the strength of will to survive.
...this tale of a voracious totalitarianism devouring several memorable characters registers an intense and lingering emotional impression ... That such a diffuse tale should prove shattering serves as testament to Thien’s formidable storytelling skills ... Do Not Say We Have Nothing, though undeniably bloated, will enthrall just about any reader.