A review by siena_j_p
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book falls into the category of perfectly well written, just not really my thing. It follows the women of the Joy Luck Club, a group that began with one of them who started a mahjong group while living in a war zone in China, and now lives in San Francisco. The founder of the group has just died and her daughter has learned that her mother had two other daughters who she was separated from in China and has spent years looking for and finally found. But the majority of the book is actually about the other women in the group and their daughters, and the conflict between the two different generations and cultures. I do appreciate what the author was trying to do with this, but I really struggled to keep all the different characters and their respective stories straight in my head, so I don’t think I really fully appreciated the connections between each vignette. Like, I don’t think I could have followed everything without making a flow chart or something. And that could very well be a me problem, but it was the main barrier for me in terms of enjoying the story.