The Bonesetter's Daughter

Amy Tan is a wonderful writer. The characters that she creates are so full of life. They are very lovable (or not).

i appreciated this more after reading the reader’s guide at the end and learning that much of this book was based on tan’s own family history, but it was really just an okay, enjoyable enough read, nothing special 1. at times it felt a little stereotypical in the way that qing china was portrayed, as if the exotic traits of ancient chinese culture were being written through a westerner’s point-of-view. i can’t really fault tan for this since the book was incredibly well-researched and historically accurate, and she *is* american. 2. the ending was a very conventional way to wrap things up, very structured and clean in an awkward, uninspiring way. it was off-putting and simply odd that luling was shipped off to a nursing home (or whatever ruth and art called it instead) and that the author tried to justify it so much. the ending felt sooo americanized and didn’t feel true to the rest of the book. there’s a time and place for positive representation of nursing homes when compromising chinese and western culture... but i’m sure there was a more creative and fulfilling way for ruth and art to mend their marriage that didn’t involve art showing he “cared” for his mother-in-law by getting rid of her.

I hadn't read any Tan before picking this one up and am unsure now whether to read more or not, as I'm not sure whether this is regarded as one of her better books or not. I found the first big section deeply disappointing. It read like a script for an infomercial or a dramatization and just felt really amateurish and frankly made me wonder if Tan was well regarded less in the way that a literary author is well regarded than in the way a more popular but lighter author is popular. I was ready to begrudgingly award this book two stars because it hurts my feelings a little to go as low as one star. But then the big middle section redeemed it. What a lovely (well, and horrifying) story and how nicely Tan wrote it! The final section returns to something nearer the first big section, though I found it slightly less annoying, if also not very likely in terms of plotting or natural in terms of character development. I could be convinced that one author wrote the big middle chunk of the book (and the short opening section) and farmed the rest out to a hack. I suppose I'll try another by Tan, but at the first glimmer of a resemblance to the hackish style of portions of this book, I'll likely run away.

Had to read this for our English class and I actually found this more interesting than I thought it would be. This isn't a bad book, it contains good life lessons and tackles important topics but while I was reading, it felt so SLOW. (just me?) I read this online and it only had 100+ pages so I thought it would be easy for me to finish this but that wasn't the case, there were times I stopped to take a nap since it made me sleepy..

I hadn't read any Tan before picking this one up and am unsure now whether to read more or not, as I'm not sure whether this is regarded as one of her better books or not. I found the first big section deeply disappointing. It read like a script for an infomercial or a dramatization and just felt really amateurish and frankly made me wonder if Tan was well regarded less in the way that a literary author is well regarded than in the way a more popular but lighter author is popular. I was ready to begrudgingly award this book two stars because it hurts my feelings a little to go as low as one star. But then the big middle section redeemed it. What a lovely (well, and horrifying) story and how nicely Tan wrote it! The final section returns to something nearer the first big section, though I found it slightly less annoying, if also not very likely in terms of plotting or natural in terms of character development. I could be convinced that one author wrote the big middle chunk of the book (and the short opening section) and farmed the rest out to a hack. I suppose I'll try another by Tan, but at the first glimmer of a resemblance to the hackish style of portions of this book, I'll likely run away.

This book didn't capture me like Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but it was enjoyable just the same.