I was excited to read this book because I have always found Chinese culture intriguing. It was interesting to learn about it from an American's perspective.

Beautiful country got my attention in the first few chapters, but somewhere in the middle, it began to bore me. The first half of the book was just random anecdotes about China, loosely tied together with Chase's narration and thoughts. A lot of these stories were interesting, but some of them seemed irrelevant. It wasn't until the last half of the book that there was an actual plot. Around page 225, (view spoiler) I was finally excited to find out how everything wrapped up... Then, the ending fell flat. It was very anticlimactic and disappointing.

The whole book was told from Chase's point of view. In the beginning, Chase seemed too immature... Then, he seemed like he grew up (yay, finally!) until he made some really stupid and immature decisions. However, I understand that he had to grow up because this is really a young adult book. Also, Chase couldn't stand up to his dad, which really annoyed me. (Chase's strange relationship with his father is explained later in the book.)

The other characters, however, were really interesting. Little bits and pieces of the other tennis players and their lives were very interesting. I actually wish we learned more about those other characters. Madame Jiang had an interesting story too. I also liked Victoria - she was very sweet and loyal.

In the end, Beautiful Country had some interesting parts and characters, but the idea of an American teenager in China was better than the actual execution. ( )