There’s a healthy dose of sarcasm in the title of Lijia Zhang’s new memoir, “Socialism is Great!” A Worker’s Memoir of the New China. And the picture on the cover, a beaming Chinese girl holding two baby lambs, is a bit tongue-in-cheek too. The story of Zhang’s coming of age in China during the 1980’s is anything but idyllic, yet her memoir is ultimately hopeful and inspiring.

As a teenager growing up in a village just outside the city walls of Nanjing, China, Lijia Zhang hopes to continue her education by attending a foreign language school and, eventually, university. Instead, Zhang’s mother pressures her to become a worker at a state-owned rocket factory. Her mother calls the factory an “iron rice bowl” because of the security and benefits it provides to state employees: everything from nursery care to extra food.

As a factory worker, Zhang is quickly bored by the menial tasks assigned to her and finds a way to continue her education by attending non-traditional “TV” university (where classes are played on videotape) and learning English at a Teach-Yourself University. While her non-conformist attitude results in a few scrapes with authority, in the end, Zhang’s determination and ambition serve her well as she eventually becomes a translator, writer and journalist.

In addition to being a personal, intimate account of a young woman’s life, “Socialism is Great!” provides a fascinating look inside the modernization of China—the growth of private business, the opening of the culture to new ideas, the struggle to break from tradition. In some ways, it reads as a sequel to another memoir set in China, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, which recounts the lives of three generations of Chinese women from the 1920’s to the 1970’s. “Socialism is Great!” picks up where Wild Swans left off, describing the experiences and struggles of the next generation of women. Told with honesty and humor, Lijia Zhang’s memoir is an unforgettable read.

Reviewed by Christy Molzen

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