Youyou's Revenge

Youyou's Revenge is a novel by Chen Yu, an author born in the 1980s, published by Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House in 2009. The story centers on a girl named Youyou, born into a materially comfortable but emotionally stifling family. Her father, a talented man of humble origins, married into the family because her maternal grandfather chose him as a son-in-law; her mother, from a scholarly household, is high-profile and domineering. The two were a mismatch from the start. As her mother's family declines and her father's career soars, the marriage crumbles step by step. Raised by her mother to be a refined young lady of letters, Youyou sits quietly at the piano until she is eleven, when her life is turned upside down: her mother discovers her father's long-standing affair and tries to use financial misconduct as leverage to force him back, but her domineering manner and warped mindset defeat the plan. Enraged, her father hires someone to kill his wife and stages the scene, but the crime is solved and he is arrested in a hospital bed. Youyou is suddenly taken home to a cold mother, a father behind bars, and an extraordinarily difficult coming of age. She goes through hardship, wandering, theft and endurance; amid the cold stares of the world and its trials, she falls and redeems herself by turns, and meets characters such as Qi Dong. The book depicts "endless falls and self-redemption again and again, drawn-out love and ethereal despair," summed up as "Youyou's grand revenge: her whole journey of growing up, covered in bloodstains." With delicate strokes the author portrays a girl's psychology and a family's fracture, raising questions about class, marriage and human nature.