A review by abigailbat
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No
I read this for FCL's Classics book group. It was a favorite of mine in high school, I think in large part because my mom had read and loved it and reading the things she loved was one of the ways I liked to feel connected to her. That's very fitting since this book is all about the relationships between mothers and daughters. Rereading it now, I can appreciate why it was so popular and still think it doesn't wholly hold up. It was written in 1989 and the "present day" stories very much feel like the 1980s. I was surprised at how little of the book I remembered; the last quarter were stories I remembered the most strongly. I did flip back and forth a little bit to try to see how each mother's story influenced her daughter's story, etc. My favorites were Lindo Jong - how she manipulated her abusive family into letting her leave her arranged marriage and the one with the mother who was 4th wife (I forget which character that is, one of the mothers). 
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