Themes, Title and Significance

So far, I can think about a couple of themes (at least the most important ones) the book Ties that Bind, Ties that Break, will be dealing with. First, there is culture; just by looking at the issues with the bound feet situation, we know the book is heavy charged -culturally speaking-. Other examples of this theme are the arranged marriages and all the behavior and manners existing in the book. The second would be friendship and love, this in regard with Ailin's friend Hanwei and the relationship developed between them along the chapters of the story. A third one is freedom, since the first pages one can see that Ailin is sort of a free spirit. She likes to run free, she is not that interested in the things or duties her older sisters carry but she is mesmerized by the new and let's say uncommon things she talks with Hanwei in their first meeting, And of course she does not want her feet to be bounded, like the old tradition dictates. She wants to be free from the regulations and conventions of her environment.

Ties that Bind, Ties that Break has received some critical acclaim from various magazines and was well received from readers all around the world; specially for its amazing atmosphere, setting and its power and intensity. Among the prizes its author has been awarded with the (American Library Association) ALA Best Books for Young Adults in 2000, the California Young Reader Medal in 2004, the Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List in 2001 and a nomination for the Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award in 2002.

For me, the title says -aside from the "obvious" relation with the bound feet and the way its practice could torn apart Ailin's family.- that there are some relationships that at some point will cause you to "break" or to stop yourself from being with other persons as important as that one. It is not necessarily something bad, but it happens. I think the title will reflect itself in the story by showing that there are some (kinds of) unions that sunder.

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