THEME of SHANGHAI GIRLS
It has been obvious how someone's life can change so much. In the life, there's something that you just can't have control over. It is quite frustrating to admit that you don't have total control over your fate, but that is the way nature works. Pearl, as a main character of the book,  faces the inevitable misfortune in her life. Through that, she fell a lot from the top model of the magazine in Shanghai to a arranged wife of a son of a poor Chinese family. She struggles a lot through the story to fight her fate. No matter how hard she tries to work things out, dull amount of time flies away with no or very little changes left. At some point, it seems meaningless and worthless to put an effort to fight her fate when it takes so much time and effort. 
But it does not necessarily mean that your life is always have been determined into one fate. There are lots of things you can change with your effort over time. But life usually works this way. There is a given fate, sometimes inevitable, and you will either accept it or try to fight for another way. It could take just a second, days, or even years to make a difference.