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okiecozyreader's review
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
As soon as I started reading this, I remembered why I loved Lisa See’s books. Even though she writes about difficult women’s topics in China, her stories are so compelling and well-written. I couldn’t put it down so many times and stayed up until well after midnight because I had to know what happened.
In this book, Tan Yunxian is raised by a wealthy family in 1469 in China in a system of emperors and the men who train take imperial exams to be highly through of and successful. This leaves the women as objects, wives who produce sons and concubines to help secure their family lines. When Yunxian’s mother dies from an infected foot (lots in this book about foot wrapping), she and the concubine go to live with her father’s mother and father. Her grandparents are both physicians and her grandmother begins educating her on the intricacies of helping women, which are largely ignored by male doctors, who can only help them through a screen and a distance. After her marriage is arranged, she moves to her husband’s family compound nearby. Her mother in law begins to train her, yet she longs to practice medicine like her grandmother.
As always, I love how much of this is based on a real woman Tan Yunxian who lived in the Garden of Fragrant Delights and how her great-nephew republished her records and gives us an update about her and her family at the end. All of her research as described in the back of the book as to how these pieces came together is so impressive.
“…everyone in this room wants more, as if there weren’t enough for everyone.” P104
“Don’t think I know that those heavenly flowers (smallpox scars) are what make you so beautiful?…
Total perfection is not so desirable.” P278
“Men may be heaven and sun, but nothing can change the essential weakness of Essence.” P333
“For much of my life I felt alone, but over the years a circle of women came to love me, and I came to love each of those women in return.” P339
“A friend without faults will never be found,” she recites. Many women call themselves friends, but one day the wind blows east and the next day the wind blows west.”
“Every minute of silence you allow to continue will push the two of you farther apart. It takes a lifetime to make a friend, but you can lose one in an hour,” she recites. “Life without a friend is life without sun. Life without a friend is death.”
“Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together.”
“A woman is a woman whether born in the dirt or in silk.”
“A thousand years in the past, a thousand years in the future—no matter where you live or how rich or poor you are—the four phases of a woman’s life are the same.”
In this book, Tan Yunxian is raised by a wealthy family in 1469 in China in a system of emperors and the men who train take imperial exams to be highly through of and successful. This leaves the women as objects, wives who produce sons and concubines to help secure their family lines. When Yunxian’s mother dies from an infected foot (lots in this book about foot wrapping), she and the concubine go to live with her father’s mother and father. Her grandparents are both physicians and her grandmother begins educating her on the intricacies of helping women, which are largely ignored by male doctors, who can only help them through a screen and a distance. After her marriage is arranged, she moves to her husband’s family compound nearby. Her mother in law begins to train her, yet she longs to practice medicine like her grandmother.
As always, I love how much of this is based on a real woman Tan Yunxian who lived in the Garden of Fragrant Delights and how her great-nephew republished her records and gives us an update about her and her family at the end. All of her research as described in the back of the book as to how these pieces came together is so impressive.
“…everyone in this room wants more, as if there weren’t enough for everyone.” P104
“Don’t think I know that those heavenly flowers (smallpox scars) are what make you so beautiful?…
Total perfection is not so desirable.” P278
“Men may be heaven and sun, but nothing can change the essential weakness of Essence.” P333
“For much of my life I felt alone, but over the years a circle of women came to love me, and I came to love each of those women in return.” P339
“A friend without faults will never be found,” she recites. Many women call themselves friends, but one day the wind blows east and the next day the wind blows west.”
“Every minute of silence you allow to continue will push the two of you farther apart. It takes a lifetime to make a friend, but you can lose one in an hour,” she recites. “Life without a friend is life without sun. Life without a friend is death.”
“Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together.”
“A woman is a woman whether born in the dirt or in silk.”
“A thousand years in the past, a thousand years in the future—no matter where you live or how rich or poor you are—the four phases of a woman’s life are the same.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content
Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Blood, Confinement, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Infertility, and Mental illness
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