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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
it took me 200 pages to get into this book. i’d like to reread it at some point, as it took me such a long time to finish. the end unfortunately felt so disjointed from the rest of the book
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I thought I loved Amy Tan. Then I read the Valley of Amazement, and was left disappointed. So I decided to reread an old favourite, The Hundred Secret Senses, and I didn't love it as much as I once did.
The protagonist, Olivia, comes across as mean spirited, selfish and cold. Her tantrums over food and a lack of indoor plumbing when she is visiting rural China reminds me of a bratty teenager. It was very hard to like her and therefore root for her throughout the novel.
Her sister Kwan is entertaining, but she seems to fall into the same stereotype that she creates for the mother/sister/aunt characters in her books, a comical lack of English, frugal, crafty.
The pacing of the book is good, the flashbacks to 1860s China are well placed, but the ending of the book, the trip to China felt rushed to me and the ending incredibly cliché.
All in all, a decent read, but not her best.
The protagonist, Olivia, comes across as mean spirited, selfish and cold. Her tantrums over food and a lack of indoor plumbing when she is visiting rural China reminds me of a bratty teenager. It was very hard to like her and therefore root for her throughout the novel.
Her sister Kwan is entertaining, but she seems to fall into the same stereotype that she creates for the mother/sister/aunt characters in her books, a comical lack of English, frugal, crafty.
The pacing of the book is good, the flashbacks to 1860s China are well placed, but the ending of the book, the trip to China felt rushed to me and the ending incredibly cliché.
All in all, a decent read, but not her best.
I read this one for a book group, and it started off so slow that I thought I was going to have to do some major skimming to get through it. It picked up around page 70 or so, though, and from there I really enjoyed it. I was very interested to see where the story would go, and how things would end up. I can't say I loved the ending, but it wasn't horrible.
challenging
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Amy Tan writes beautiful prose, and is also an amazing narrator. It was her voice that kept me listening when I wanted to give up because I had no idea what the heck what was the point of all the ghost stories. The writing was very descriptive, so much so, that I felt that a story line must be important to take this much time, and then went nowhere. There is a lot going on - sisterhood, Chinese-American identity, Chinese history, marriage, etc. The blurb does make it seem like it's mostly a story about sisters, but in the end, to me, it was a story about how love (both romantic and between friends) transcends time and place. I think if I had read this back in the 90s I would have rated it higher, but some aspects of the story just did not age well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Blood, Grief, Colonisation
Moderate: Gun violence, Infertility, Car accident
Minor: Death of parent, Abandonment
mysterious
reflective