Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: The Bonesetter's Daughter Author: Amy Tan ISBN: 9780399146435 Publisher: G.P Putnam Type of book: China, mother-daughter relationship, 1920s-1990s?, living together, dementia/Alzheimer, legends, stories, myths Year it was published: 2001 Summary: A major new novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses. LuLing Young is now in her eighties, and finally beginning to feel the effects of old age. Trying to hold on to the evaporating past, she begins to write down all that she can remember of her life as a girl in China. Meanwhile, her daughter Ruth, a ghostwriter for authors of self-help books, is losing the ability to speak up for herself in front of the man she lives with. LuLing can only look on, helpless: her prickly relationship with her daughter does not make it easy to discuss such matters. In turn, Ruth has begun to suspect that something is wrong with her mother: s...

Name of book: The Kitchen God's Wife Author Name: Amy Tan ISBN: 0-8041-0753-X Publisher: Ballantine Books Type of book: Young adult? (Not sure if schools use this book for curriculum) Adult, fantasy China, historical, modern Year it was published: 1991 Summary: From amazon: " Fans of Tan's Joy Luck Club (Putnam, 1989) will love her powerful second novel. Here she creates an absorbing story about the lives of a Chinese mother and her adult American-born daughter. Pressured to reveal to the young woman her secret past in war-torn China in the 1940s, Winnie weaves an unbelievable account of a childhood of loneliness and abandonment and a young adulthood marred by a nightmarish arranged marriage. Winnie survives her many ordeals because of the friendship and strength of her female friends, the love of her second husband, and her own steadfast courage and endurance. At the conclusion, her secrets are uncovered and she shares a trust/love relationship with her...

Name of book:   The Hundred Secret Senses Author Name:  Amy Tan ISBN:  0-8041-1109-X Publisher:  Ivy Books, Ballantine Books Type of Book:  Adult, fantasy-history china, contemporary Year it was published:  1995 Summary:   From amazon: "Olivia, the narrator of this story, was born to an American mother and a Chinese father. She meets her 18-year-old Chinese half sister, Kwan, for the first time shortly after their father's death. Kwan adores "Libby-ah" and tries to introduce her to her Chinese heritage through stories and memories. Olivia is embarrassed by her sibling, but finds as she matures that she has inadvertently absorbed much about Chinese superstitions, spirits, and reincarnation. Olivia explains, "My sister Kwan believes she has Yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the World of Yin..." Now in her mid-30s, Olivia, a photographer, is still seeking a meaningful life. The climax of the story comes when she and her...

 Chinese Fairytale Gone wrong Name of book:  The Joy Luck Club Author Name:  Amy Tan ISBN:  0-8041-0630-4 Publisher: Ballantine Books New York Type of book:  Originally an adult novel, now young adult-adult, fantasy china, historical, contemporary Year it was published:  October 1989 Summary:  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,...