Zhang Xiuxiu was born in a rural village in central Jiangxi. From childhood, everyone agreed she was the kind of child other parents wished they had. Determined to escape her farming background, she gritted her teeth and took the college entrance exam three times. She failed twice due to unforeseen circumstances, and only just managed to get a university acceptance letter on her third try.
She was convinced that graduating from college would land her a secure job, but little did she know that the state would abolish guaranteed job assignments just as she graduated.
Two close friends from her hometown took different paths: one changed her fortunes through marriage, while the other used her father's connections to secure an opportunity. All three escaped rural life, but the messy struggles of life were only just beginning.
Housing assignments, career choices, buying a home, education, a second child, an unfaithful husband... Three young women who came from the countryside struggle and drift with the tides of the times, writing the most authentic lives of a generation of women born in the 1970s.
