Close glimpse at realities facing migrant women

If Oprah Winfrey had a book club in China, Miss Chopsticks would definitely be one of its selections.

The first novel by noted Anglo-Chinese journalist Xue Xinran, whose pen name is simply Xinran, fits the bill for a popular read, lacking deep artistic merit, yet offering a narrative with morsels of insight about China. The approach is more akin to the work of Nora Ephron than Steinbeck, but there's nothing egregious in that; Ephron usually tells a good tale.

Miss Chopsticks is a charming story of three migrant sisters who move to Nanjing from rural Anhui province seeking the money and opportunities that their village cannot offer. As female peasants, they are second-class citizens in an already marginalized segment of Chinese society and the challenges they face - from forced marriages to exclusion from basic education - seem endless.