Reviews - Lady Tan's Circle of Women

6.29k reviews for:

Lady Tan's Circle of Women

Lisa See

4.26 AVERAGE

emptysparkles's review against another edition

4.25

emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad 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: Yes

hollyannsa's review against another edition

Eh. Not my thing. I really don’t enjoy books set long long ago. The history is Interesting. I am so glad I did not live during that time.

kyra_keeling's review against another edition

4.25

challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

laurammon's review against another edition

4.5

challenging emotional informative 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: No

jenbsbooks's review against another edition

3.5

Upon finishing this book ... I think most of my thoughts about it skew toward the negative. That's not to say that it wasn't interesting or well written, but that it's not one I enjoyed or would necessarily recommend. I picked up a physical copy (for the LFL, which I will be passing on ... I sometimes keep those books I really connect with) but borrowed the audio and Kindle copy from the library. I went primarily with the audio. The narration was good ... I wondered if perhaps it needed more of an accent for authenticity and ambience?

This was divided into four parts, four stages of a woman's life ... Milk Days, Hair Pinning Days, Rice and Salt Days, Sitting Quietly. There were chapters with headers running throughout (19 chapters in total, plus a preface and postscript). These inner chapters had numbers in the Kindle version only.

Personal Pet Peeves ... the physical copy doesn't even provide a Table of Contents, which is par for the course for publishing today, but really shafts the reader in my opinion. So frustrating having to flip endlessly through pages trying to find a specific chapter/place. Even the digital options didn't have a "TOC" per say (a single page with the books sections) but it was there for navigation at least. Still a little difficult to move between formats (audio/Kindle) as the TOCs didn't have the same numbering (at least the headers were included).

I was honestly a little confused at the preface and postscript (a different unnamed character, ancestor ...) It just felt so different than the rest of the text. Odd.

1st person/Present tense ...

Not that books/novels are only for enjoyment, but it can be difficult when all the events are depressing, or rub me the wrong way. The whole "Garden of Fragrant Delights" and "bedroom affairs" and "night sports" and "child palace" (uterus), the "three precious things" (those male parts) and even the Pillars of Chinese medicine known at the time, the "Four Examinations" just felt so flowery and over the top. Then there was the treatment of the women (keeping a palace of concubines), the foot binding, only wanting male children, the midwife being beaten and almost killed for the "audacity"' of having a miscarriage... honestly, at that point I was almost okay if she was killed, because at least then the suffering would be over (instead of having lost her baby, being beaten and then banished ... death might just be preferrable).

No proFanity - some sex, nothing explicit/detailed.
I liked the title tie-in.
No discussion questions included in the Kindle copy - but I found some online. I feel like if I delved deeper, had discussions, it probably would improve my impressions from just my quick listen? https://lisasee.com/books/lady-tans-circle-of-women/#guide

The author's note was detailed ... in Kindle. It wasn't even added to the audiobook.