《Oracle Bones》主要围绕三条线索展开：在涪陵小镇读书赶上改革开放南下闯荡的学生；一心想要移民去美国的在北京雅宝路黑市交易的维吾尔族人；被拆迁的四合院引发的对甲骨文学者陈梦家自杀的故事的探索。因为真实，所以有些许沉重。
-- “At Fuling Teachers College, most of my students had come from peasant homes, and they trained to become English teachers in rural middle schools.”
第一条线索的主人公主要是何伟在涪陵中专的两位学生，其中描述最多的是去往深圳打拼的女生Emily和带着同伴女友（后成为妻子）的William Jefferson Foster,这是我一开始最期待看的部分，我看到专属于那个年代的故事。Emily南下去了深圳，刚刚建设中的深圳，大部分是来自于台湾等地的制造业，工厂会设置宵禁，白领与蓝领之间有着深切的鸿沟，奋斗与迷茫同时存在着，Emily最终回去重庆一所学校给身体有缺陷的孩子教授英语。
--"One of Emily's friends had worked at the purse factory, where the Taiwanese boss often ordered everyone to stay on the production line until midnight, yelling when they got tired. One worker complained and got fired; when he demanded his last paycheck, the boss had him beaten up. "
--“They’re looking for prostitutes,” she whispered. A moment later, a woman passed through—walking slowly, glancing around, until a man came up and spoke to her. They talked for a few seconds, and then the man returned to the shadows. The woman kept walking. Emily said, “Do you want to see what happens if I leave you here alone?”
（可以看到很多对于那个时候深圳的一些细节的描述，一个毫无根基因为政策而飞速发展的城市的其中一个侧面。）
而William则是和女友南下去浙江的一所中学交英语，但是学校并不像宣传的那样，其实是一所经营不善、仍在修缮过程中的初中，同时校长的老婆作为财务工资很低，几年之后Willy终于应聘到温州的另一所私立中学当英语老师，Willy在那里又经历了很多，还有了自己的女儿，有一个小细节特别的感人，Willy将关于女儿的日记与自己听到的各种事件放在了一起，因为这样自己的女儿长大后可以看着这个日记就会想起很多过去发生的事情。
"One of Willy’s most vivid childhood memories was from that day in 1982, when his family became the first in Number Three Production Team to own a television….When the TV was put inside, nobody knew how to use it. Everybody tried, but it didn't work; maybe it took about five or six hours. There were more than one hundred people at my home, mostly in the big room. It was just like a lobby, people sit in lines, one after another." (Willy 关于小时候家里作为村里第二户买电视机的回忆)
另外，在温州当地的中考中，相关部门特别偏袒公立初中，经常会泄露考题；Willy所在的私立初中为了获得考题，经常请相关部门的吃饭，但是从来没有得到过考题。有一年一位家长泄露了考题给Willy, Willy悄悄告诉了自己的学生，那年他带的班取得了最好的英语成绩，他也拿到了6000元的奖金。第二年Willy又得到了消息，但是这次Willy匿名举报了，因为：
" I did it because of the countryside students. Whenever this happens, it’s only the cities that get the information. It’s not fair for the students who come from the countryside. "
新一代的人们更多的是实用主义者，但是梦想主义者的特性有时候又会在一些事情中显现出来。透过作者的笔，我们并没有看到一个个急功近利的灵魂，更多的是在合理范围内为自己生活打拼、努力的年轻人。
但是我看到最后，我最喜欢的或者说感触最深的还是陈梦家相关的故事。当作者开始探索陈先生的故事的时候，陈先生早已不再人世。
作者在接近全书最后的时候是这样总结两个故事的：
From the beginning of my research, I had known that it was too late to discover what had really happened to Chen Mengjia. His tale had disappeared with the old political campaigns, and he was of a lost generation: the educated elite who had struggled through the last century. Today's China was a story of the future, and it was moved by the new middle class; pragmatism had replaced the idealism of the past. The boomtown and the migrants mattered-- young people like Emily and William Jefferson Foster, finding their way in a changing country.
我很喜欢这一段话，这段话将两代人的故事连接起来了，从过去到现在，从现在到过去，用一个普通人的视角讲述了两个重大变故的年代的真实变化。
