The fictional narrative involves Pearl Buck becoming friends with a Chinese girl named Willow Yee.
According to Min, it was a plot by Jiang Qing to prevent Buck from having proximity to President of the United States Richard Nixon and Chinese Paramount Leader Mao Zedong.
[3] Jan Stuart of The New York Times argued that the initial sections read well, but criticized "wide-eyed story telling" and the "melodramatic reversals of fortune and 11th-hour rescues" that occur after the Boxer Rebellion begins in the novel.
[4] Publishers Weekly stated that some sections seem like a "treatment", and that the work "is curiously low-key".
[1] Kirkus Reviews criticized the work as being a "flat, hagiographic narrative"; in particular the review criticized the use of Willow, stating that the character's purpose seems to be narrating Buck's journey and that Willow "isn’t fleshed out".