China Road vs Wild Swans: Which Should You Read?
China Road
Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges…
vs
Wild Swans
"Jung Chang vividly evokes China's sights, sounds, and smells to create what must be one of the grimmest, yet most perceptive accounts of growing up middle-class in the maelstrom that has swept China since the 1920s." -…
The verdict
- Readers rate Wild Swans highest: Wild Swans 4.3 · China Road 4.1.
- China Road is the quickest read — about 6 hours vs 13 for Wild Swans.
- Wild Swans has the widest readership — 128589 ratings behind its score.
- Wild Swans runs the darker storyline; China Road stays the lighter read.
How to choose
Scores by source
| China Road | Wild Swans | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | — | 4.3 (128589) |
| Hardcover | 3.8 (8) | 4.3 (104) |
| Google Books | 4.5 (5) | — |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (16) | 4.5 (187) |
Reception
| China Road | Wild Swans | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 16 | 128589 |
| Editions | 15 | 72 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | — | 161756 |
| Reading it now | — | 9161 |
| Written reviews | — | 8970 |
| Wikipedia attention | 58 | 5578 |
| Pages | 342 | 729 |