Reviews - Lady Tan's Circle of Women

6.32k reviews for:

Lady Tan's Circle of Women

Lisa See

4.26 AVERAGE

tvislife's review against another edition

4.0

informative sad fast-paced

I barely remember anything I learned about American history, and I know I learned very little about Chinese history.

I know this was a fictionalized account of a real woman, but I found the household politics and the way the women spent their lives utterly fascinating. Lady Tan was a remarkable woman, in privileged yet incredibly restrictive circumstances. I would love to read more stories about women like this.

kristibowles's review against another edition

4.0

4.5⭐️

ama4251's review against another edition

2.25

slow-paced

There's a reason the best books abide by the adage "show, don't tell". This novel unfortunately isn't one of them - too often it felt like reading a textbook transposed into first person. The narrative was constantly injected with factual statements about the era that the character most certainly would never think or say in such an omniscient phrasing. Perhaps the flat affect was an intentional reflection of Chinese high society in that time, but it was so distracting to the plot. Nearly all the characters except Meiling lacked any emotional depth which really tanked this for me. Such a shame - given the amount of research that clearly went into this book, it had so much potential!

shhchar's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional informative sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

ericaj423's review against another edition

3.0

emotional informative reflective 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

This was a good book with insights into the culture of China in the 1500s. It was interesting. Yunxian and Meiling's relationship was a key part of the entire book, which I enjoyed because I think that it is important for women to have a circle of other women to support them.

I will say the first third and the last third of the book were great, but the middle portion was very slowly paced.