ama4251 's review for:

Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See

2.25

slow-paced

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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!