Beautiful Country is a Cultural Heritage Fiction novel by J.R. Thornton. Read summary below.
Beautiful Country Summary
“This unsettling book about the moral encounter between America and China is a study of privilege, innocence, and risk. It is a tragedy of manners and a portrait of Beijing — amplified and torqued and unmistakable.”— Evan Osnos, autor of Age of Ambition, winner of the National Book Award
A coming-of-age story set in modern day China centering on the friendship between an American and a Chinese boy who meet while training with Beijing’s Junior National Tennis Team.
Chase Robertson arrives in Beijing as a fourteen-year-old boy still troubled by the recent death of his older brother. He discovers a country in transition; a society in which the dual systems of Communist Era state control and an emerging entrepreneurial culture exist in paradox.
A top ranked junior tennis player in the U.S., Chase joins the practices of the Beijing National Junior Tennis Team and is immersed in the brutal, cut-throat world of Chinese sport. It is a world in which gifted children are selected at the ages of six or seven for specialized sport schools where they devote their entire youth to the pursuit of athletic excellence and are paid as professionals by the state. Athletes find themselves compelled to do anything possible to succeed—right or wrong. Those who fail to reach the pinnacle are cast aside and are left facing a desperate future without hope.
In China, Chase gains access to a culture rarely open to Westerners, and soon finds himself caught up in secrets. When his closest friend and teammate turns to him for help, Chase is faced with the dilemma of what to do when friendship, rules, and morals are in conflict.
A big-hearted debut, Beautiful Country explores a friendship against the backdrop of a quickly changing country.
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Beautiful Country Review
4.0 out of 5 stars Depends
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2017
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Your rating of this book might depend on several things. Beautiful Country is about a 14 year-old boy with an incredible amount of skill at playing tennis who is having a difficult time coming to terms with the death of his brother. Subsequently, his father sends him to China to practice with the Chinese national team for a year. If you like tennis and know a lot about it, you will probably like Beautiful Country. Several times I thought J.R. Thornton added “A Novel” to the title to differentiate it from a textbook on Chinese history and culture. The story itself was excellent, but there were times when I wanted to shout “enough already!” during all the technical tennis terms and history pontifications. There were also lessons in the Chinese language, complete with the Chinese characters, as if we might be able to replicate them or recognize them again. Much Chinese was spoken with the English translation in parentheses. One minute I loved the book, the next I was sick of it. I guess if I absolutely had to say yay or nay to recommending this book, I would say yay. Just be aware of the trappings that come with it.
4.0 out of 5 stars A nice, pleasant book to read.
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2019
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This book was a nice, simply written book about a kid going to China to play tennis for a year at his American father’s influence. It is sort of a coming of age story and opens the reader up to life at a tennis camp or school in China. I don’t want to spoil it. I think anyone who is interested in tennis, travel and learning about a young boy’s inner feelings so far from home, would like this book! No swearing, no sex, just a good story. Easy to read and appropriate for young children and teens.
About J.R. Thornton Author Of Beautiful Country Book
J.R. Thornton the Author Of Beautiful Country Book was Born in London, He graduated from Harvard in 2014 where he studied History, English and Chinese. He lived in Beijing as a teenager, returning recently to undertake a fellowship at the International Writer’s Center at Beijing Normal University. An internationally ranked tennis player as a junior, he later competed for the Harvard men’s team and on the professional circuit. “Beautiful Country” is his debut novel.
Beautiful Country pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information
- ASIN : 0062411918
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; First Edition (April 19, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780062411914
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062411914
- Reading age : 13 – 17 years
- Item Weight : 8 ounces
- Dimensions : 0.72 x 5.31 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #101,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #450 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #1,427 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
- #16,167 in Contemporary Romance (Books)
- Customer Reviews: 4.0 out of 5 stars 114 ratings
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