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meganchristinelynn 's review for:
Lady Tan's Circle of Women
by Lisa See
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
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
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a historical fiction based on a real physician from the Ming dynasty. As someone that doesn’t know much about 15th century China, I found that this provided an interesting, surface-level introduction into the topic. The story does contain graphic descriptions of foot-binding, arranged marriage, traumatic child birth, and death, however, I did not mind because those themes are realistic to the time period.
This novel was fine and kept my attention, but there were a few things that keep me from giving a higher than average rating. I felt like this was manufactured for a ladies book club. While I appreciate the strength that some of the female characters exhibit and that the author tries to illustrate the bonds between women, I often felt that the women characters were somewhat awful to each other. I also disliked that the author seemed to gloss over how terrifying arranged marriage between 15 year olds would actually be. The main character gets sold and sent away from her family. I suppose her husband could be handsome and kind and she could hope she would conceive a son on their wedding night as was described, but it felt a little too “happily ever after” for me. Lastly, there was a murder mystery plot twist that seemed a little out of place - I would have preferred it be more developed or left out completely.
This novel was fine and kept my attention, but there were a few things that keep me from giving a higher than average rating. I felt like this was manufactured for a ladies book club. While I appreciate the strength that some of the female characters exhibit and that the author tries to illustrate the bonds between women, I often felt that the women characters were somewhat awful to each other. I also disliked that the author seemed to gloss over how terrifying arranged marriage between 15 year olds would actually be. The main character gets sold and sent away from her family. I suppose her husband could be handsome and kind and she could hope she would conceive a son on their wedding night as was described, but it felt a little too “happily ever after” for me. Lastly, there was a murder mystery plot twist that seemed a little out of place - I would have preferred it be more developed or left out completely.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Miscarriage, Death of parent