182.5 books in 52 weeks

That's my current pace, but don't worry it will never hold. I finished Serve the People in 2 days and now I am going to start 2 more books to read concurrently; How it Feels to be adopted and Spectacular Sins. But first the review of Serve the People, I guess it sort of lived up to the hype that the Propaganda Bureau delivered but not in the way I expected. I went into it assuming that it would rip the party and Mao to shreds, rake them over the coals, and then tar and feather them for added insult, but not really. Don't get me wrong it wasn't complimentary, and it definitely read like a counter-revolutionary folk story, but it wasn't that bad. The sex however, more than I expected. I guess that's not all that accurate, the sexual tension was the killer, it was thick, but somewhat necessary I suppose to make the story believable. I won't ruin it by announcing any plot details because they are all crucial to the angst in the lives of Wu Dawang and Liu Lian, but I will sum my feelings this way. I felt for these people. They lived in a way I would never consider, and did things I would never do, but in the end I felt sorry for them, and not in a pathetic way but in a genuine human empathy way. They were trying to be happy in an oppressive situation, so they made up their own rules. I would judge them as bad rules, mistakes, egregious errors in judgement, but at least they were pursuing love and happiness.