The Joy Luck Club: A Novel
"The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational." --Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians Amy Tan's beloved, New York Times bestselling tale of mothers and daughters, now the focus of a new documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir on Netflix Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.
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Community Reviews
Excellent read. The only complaint I had was I had difficulty following the story line at times when switching between the daughters views and the mothers views. Definitely a great insight to this particular culture.
Beautiful, touching, moving story. I was surprised it was from the perspective of 3 living women and 4 daughters. At times it was hard to keep track of whose childhood was who and whose mother is who. It did add an interesting element to the story. Loved the themes and story telling. I would read again.
4.5 Stars!
I am a huge fan of both stories about mother and daughter relationships as well as stories about the Asian immigrant and Asian-America experience. This book delivers on both. It is a series of vignettes following four older women from China who came to San Francisco (one of them who recently died represented by her daughter) and their four daughters’ experiences growing up between cultures. I found it incredibly fascinating to see the differences and similarities between the mothers and their daughters. I also loved reading about the mothers as children growing up in China and then seeing them as mothers of their own in their daughters’ stories.
Each of the vignettes were unique and poignant and often tragic or sad, but they were all so well written and full of character development and exploration that even though this was not a book about an overarching plot, but a character study, I never felt like it was missing anything. There was enough overlap between the stories (i.e. characters mentioning the others in their specific sections) that you could feel like this was a cohesive and connected world.
The friendship of the women and their daughters, the struggles to impart the Chinese culture to their American born daughters, and the difficulty the daughters felt trying to assimilate American values with their mothers’ more old fashioned Chinese views are very relatable to me, which is probably why I like stories about these topics. Regardless, I think this is a topic that anyone could read about and learn something from, so I highly recommend it to anyone who might be interested in China, immigration, character studies, or parent-child relationship!
I am a huge fan of both stories about mother and daughter relationships as well as stories about the Asian immigrant and Asian-America experience. This book delivers on both. It is a series of vignettes following four older women from China who came to San Francisco (one of them who recently died represented by her daughter) and their four daughters’ experiences growing up between cultures. I found it incredibly fascinating to see the differences and similarities between the mothers and their daughters. I also loved reading about the mothers as children growing up in China and then seeing them as mothers of their own in their daughters’ stories.
Each of the vignettes were unique and poignant and often tragic or sad, but they were all so well written and full of character development and exploration that even though this was not a book about an overarching plot, but a character study, I never felt like it was missing anything. There was enough overlap between the stories (i.e. characters mentioning the others in their specific sections) that you could feel like this was a cohesive and connected world.
The friendship of the women and their daughters, the struggles to impart the Chinese culture to their American born daughters, and the difficulty the daughters felt trying to assimilate American values with their mothers’ more old fashioned Chinese views are very relatable to me, which is probably why I like stories about these topics. Regardless, I think this is a topic that anyone could read about and learn something from, so I highly recommend it to anyone who might be interested in China, immigration, character studies, or parent-child relationship!
It is a very beautiful book, telling the story of Chinese mothers with daughters raised in the USA. All the clashes they have, and the female heritage of their families. My only criticism is that it doesn't connect the stories well, and I got a little lost, but otherwise it's excellent.
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