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liesthemoontells 's review for:
The Hundred Secret Senses
by Amy Tan
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved Amy Tan's prose in this novel - it felt very immediate and fresh, and I completely believed Olivia as a character. The book doesn't shy away from showing how cruel and flawed Olivia can be, and I thought Tan did a great job making her partially self-aware of this but not fully.
The book is also a fascinating time capsule of the 1990s, not just from its references to Discmen and pagers, but from its reference to a specific social and political climate. In particular, the unease that the American characters feel about China's increasing shift towards capitalism and many references to the inferiority of Chinese-made goods feels very "of its time". Similarly, there were several passages about their reactions to Chinese cultural practices and traditions that made me cringe reading them 30 years later.
Where the book shines is the depiction of Olivia and Kwan's relationship, and the emotional tug of war that the two of them have persisted with their entire adult lives. The idea of what we owe to the people who love us is a theme that I never tire of, and Olivia's turmoil over her relationship with her sister is a poignant and believable depiction of this issue.
Olivia's relationship with Simon is less believable - while Olivia's anxieties and resentments towards him rang true, Simon was quite hollow as a character and I never fully warmed to him the way I did to the central women of the story.
I also enjoyed the historical b-plot of the novel, both on its own merits and for the way it was woven into the a-plot. It wasn't about an aspect of Chinese history I was familiar with, but I chose not to read up on it until after I had finished the book, so that I could experience the same confusion/half-remembrance that Olivia does listening to Kwan's stories. This meant that I was relying on the characters and emotional through line to sustain me through these sections of the novel, and Tan does this very successfully.
I was surprised by the ending of this book. The tone had lulled me into a false sense of security that I would be getting a run of the mill happy ending where Olivia and Simon are reunited and her and Kwan develop a better, more profound sisterly bond. Kwan's disappearance felt quite abrupt and came as a shock, but reflecting on the rest of the book it felt like the appropriate rebalancing of the karmic scales.
In summary, despite some of its awkward moments, I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a strong family-driven, historical novel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism