Amy Tan

A New York Times Bestseller In 1949 four Chinese women - drawn together by the shadow of their past - begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Nearly forty years later, one of the members has died. When her daughter comes to take her place, she learns of her mother's lifelong wish, and the tragic way in which it has come true.

A Novel

The Joy Luck Club

‘The Joy Luck Club is an ambitious saga that’s impossible to read without wanting to call your Mum’ Stylist Discover Amy Tan’s moving and poignant tale of immigrant Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives - until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts.

Me, Janeli and Luis can argue all we want but we’ll always be tied to one another. My mom and dad raised us to be good people. We will always care for each other, we only have each other.

Rocio

I know we all see it: Together we look like our mother.

So many hellos and goodbyes in our lifetime. I’ll always be grateful and loving towards everyone that’s stayed and left my side. Goodbyes are so hard but need to be said sometimes. 

I think about all the different ways we leave people in this world. Cheerily waving good-bye to some at airports, knowing we’ll never see each other again. Leaving others on the side of the road, hoping that we will. Finding my mother in my father’s story and saying good-bye before I have a chance to know her better.

I feed myself with the old grief, wondering how disappointed my mother must have been.

Right after my mother died, I asked myself a lot of things, things that couldn’t be answered, to force myself to grieve more. It seemed as if I wanted to sustain my grief, to assure myself that I had cared deeply enough. 

I  thirty-six years old. My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of coming home.

All those little signs- the teasing, the bossy, scolding words- that’s how you if it is serious.

But inside I am becoming ashamed. I am ashamed she is ashamed. Because she is my daughter and I am proud of her, and I am her mother but she is not proud of me.

Feeling too much can hurt and turn to despair so quickly. I never want to have that. I want to keep feeling passionately because one day this despair can turn into happiness and live and everything beautiful in life. One day.

It is because I had so much joy then that I came to have so much hate. But even when I was my happiest, I had a worry… this worry later trickled down to my heart, where you feel a thing and it becomes true.

Later still, when I overcame my grief and came to have nothing in my heart but loathing deapair.

This is how it is when a person joins your body and there is apart of your mind that swims to join that person against your will.

I always lived like this until 2023. I gave myself the opportunity to go out and be seen and make my own choices for me and now I’m back to wanting to hide and do what I have to do in order to live but not experience the world, just live 

I know how it is to live your life like a dream. To listen and watch, to wake up and try to understand what has already happened.

She whispered to me that she would rather kill her own weak spirit so she could give me a stronger one.

What was I doing in those seconds my dad and mom died.

That morning, while my mother was dying, I was dreaming.

I was crying to being her back before she was even gone.

I know how it is to be quiet, to listen and watch, as if your life were a dream. You can close your eyes when you no longer want to watch. But when you no longer what to listen, what can you do?

If she doesn’t speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn’t try, she can lose her chance forever.

These days, I think about my life’s importance. I wonder what it means, because my mother died theee months ago, six days before my thirty-sixth birthday. And she’s the only person I could have asked, to tell me about life’s importance, to help me understand my grief.

‘What did I want from divorce- when I never knew what I had wanted from marriage?’

If you bend to listen to other people. You will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away.

To each person I told a different story. Yet each version was true, I was certain of it, at least at the moment that I told it.

She waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.

‘Half of everything inside you,’ she explained, ‘is from your father’s side.’ But my mother continued to speak, smiling broadly, sweeping her hand. ‘And half of everything inside you is from me, your mother’s side…”

So beautiful. This is how I felt when I was with D, he made me feel seen, truly seen.

He didn’t allow me to cover myself up. He would grab my hands, look me straight in the eye and tell me something new about why he loved me.

None of it seems right. Nothing makes sense. I can admit to nothing and I am in complete despair.

I wanted to ask him who, what woman, had hurt him this way, that made him so scared about accepting love in all its wonderful forms.

I read this in college. It was one of the extra readings for the final exam, I chose this, and I have never regretted that decision.

This was still so good. I really adore the whole story. It is a page-turning and engaging from the first chapter story about an immigrant female group of friends and their daughters.

Each story was somehow equally funny and tragic, and I  really have to check more stories from this author.

I read this in college. It was one of the extra readings for the final exam, I chose this, and I have never regretted that decision.

This was still so good. I really adore the whole story. It is a page-turning and engaging from the first chapter story about an immigrant female group of friends and their daughters.

Each story was somehow equally funny and tragic, and I  really have to check more stories from this author.

Tragic but also beautiful and meaningful stories of mothers and daughters of chinese heritage.

My personal favourite stories were the ones of Jing-Mei Woo and her daughter Suyuan Woo (I got emotional at the reunion).

And An-mei Hsu with her daughter Rose Hsu Jordan.

Nina May

Tragic but also beautiful and meaningful stories of mothers and daughters of chinese heritage.

My personal favourite stories were the ones of Jing-Mei Woo and her daughter Suyuan Woo (I got emotional at the reunion).

And An-mei Hsu with her daughter Rose Hsu Jordan.

Monicap

I found the mother's stories particularly compelling, as I enjoyed the historicity of the characters from a history markedly different from what I learned in school, but I wish that maybe instead of including dozens of vignettes, Tan would have chosen one of the stories and followed it.

Jackie Lu

** spoiler alert **
           I thought the story itself was so-so, I really liked the dual perspectives and could align myself with many parts. I didn’t like the overall negativity of the stories, it had a very pessimistic tone to it and I wish Amy Tan explored more of the positive sides of these relationships. But I think thats also the beauty of this book and the message she is trying to send. The relationship between myself and my own mother is so negative and complicated. The Joy Luck Club actually does a fantastic job at portraying this complicated relationship because often, there really aren’t many positives. The last chapter made me cry so hard, I didn’t expect myself to cry but i was bawling throughout the chapter. Beautiful ending.

Encompassing two generations and a rich blend of Chinese and American history, the story of four struggling, strong women also reveals their daughter's memories and feelings.

Annika Arguemore

despite the superstition and stuff, this book was and is a great read. it emanates a lot of culture, Chinese culture, to be exact. and shows the importance of the relationships of mothers and dauguters.

★★★★★ // powerful, and filled with wisdom. deep-rooted in culture, and took my heart completely by the end. favorite chapter: moon lady.

do not show this book to a girl with mother issues she will cry repeatedly!!! there was something in nearly every page that tore my heart open (also the movie is a surprisingly good adaptation)

Encompassing two generations and a rich blend of Chinese and American history, the story of four struggling, strong women also reveals their daughters' memories and feelings

kesha

who is going to tell me stories that make me softly weep to sleep every night now that i'm at this close

In 1949, four Chinese women--drawn together by the shadow of their past--begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club--and forge a relationship that binds them for more than three decades. A celebrated novel in the tradition of Alice Adams and Margaret Atwood from the bestselling author of The Kitchen God's Wife.

heather

4.5 ⭐️

Feathers From A Thousand Li Way and The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates were my two most favourite chapters ;-;

"And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. You have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation."

Ayden

It’s a hard book to rate because despite the fact that I really enjoyed the writing and getting to know the culture
They’re we’re too many points of view for such a short book and the story felt unresolved though I understood what Amy was trying to show with the mother daughter relationship and the differences of American Chinese culture

Vivian

Cassidy C

The book was really slow for me and it just dragged on in snippets of boring for a lot of the book. I don't think I would have ever read this if it wasn't for school. It just wasn't really interesting to me.

Kelsi Proulx

I was disappointed with this one. I expected to like it because I really enjoyed the movie. I found the book difficult to get through though. The characters were not defined very well, I felt like they all spoke with the same voice. Since the chapters were all from a different characters point of view I found it really hard to wrap my head around. I felt very little difference in the characters tone and word choice so kept having to go back to previous chapters from that characters point of view to remind myself who they were and what their previous experiences were. 

I also expected more of a connection between the characters. Other than the first chapter and the last couple of chapters the book basically concentrated on individual characters with little to no crossover. Definitely not one of my favorites: 2.5 stars.

Maria

можно ко многому придраться в этой книге - лоскутное повествование, слишком похожие персонажи - но не хочется. всё время думала о том, что китай - это такая тысячелетняя антиутопия, только там личность приносится в жертву не обществу, а семье. человека в этой структуре нет, есть семейная собственность, и это не менее жутко, чем винтики в государственной машине.

Toni Turner

Will I ever stop crying about this? I guess only time will tell.

Omar

Reading this book was a great treat. How human and deeply touching these Chinese mother and Chinese American daughter stories were.

Sofia Diaz

Laurel Ann Smith

This is a book that deserves a reread. Not because it's fun or I miss the characters, but because I know there is so much more I could get out of it from wading through the richness. Really incredible.

Jade Flynn

Four mothers, four daughters, eight heartwarming and equally heartbreaking lives.

Meri Lancis

I cannot speak from a Chinese perspective and I don’t know if this book shows the culture perfectly. But I cried at the end and I loved the mother-daughter relationship dynamics. 🥰

Jeni Enjaian

I'm not sure why I've never read this book before now. It has all the hallmarks of some of my favorite books.

This book fascinated me from the moment I started reading. (If I could give half stars I would give this book 4.5.) I could barely stand to put it down.

There's something about Chinese imagery that is so vivid, so unlike anything normally encountered that packs a literary punch. The descriptions (given by both mothers and daughters) were spot on but so unusual as to make a lasting impression.

However, there were two reasons why I did not give this book five stars. The first is the narration choice. I understand why Amy Tan did that. This wasn't the story of one woman; it was the story of the Joy Luck Club. I found myself getting confused as the chapters switched as to which character the stories belonged too, though this lessened as the book progressed and I became more familiar with the names. This detractor is obviously my fault. I should have paid more attention in the beginning.

The other reason is the sadness, the overwhelming sadness that pervaded almost the entire book. All these stories felt so depressing, especially that of An-Mei. Perhaps this is why I felt so uplifted at the end with the conclusion to June's story. It felt happy, so different from the rest.

I can certainly see why this is a goodreads 100 book.

Leelynn Brady

Find this review and more on my blog Sometimes Leelynn Reads.


  “And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds "joy luck" is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.”


This is actually a reread for me, and I was lucky enough to read this for one of my book clubs: Young Women who Book Hampton Roads. If you're on Facebook and in the Hampton Roads area, check them out and come to our next meeting!

This book is one of the best books about mother-daughter relationships that I've ever read. In this book, it is the relationship between four mothers from mainland China, forced to come to the United States after a devastating war that took away everything they held dear, and their four daughters born in America. While all eight women are Chinese and are close to one another in their lives, they all have their own personalities, strengths, and weaknesses that make them into one complete family.

Each of the mothers - Suyuan, An-Mei, Lindo, and Ying-Ying - have colored and heartbreaking pasts that shaped the type of women they came to be. Everything that we find out about them in this book shows us how these events made them into the mothers they are today, and why they decided to raise their daughters the way they did. The only one that doesn't get to tell her own story in the traditional sense is Suyuan because she died before the book began.

The daughters - June, Lina, Waverly, and Rose - reminisce about what it was like growing up as a Chinese-American woman, and let us into their lives as adults. While their troubles are not as extreme or dangerous as what their mothers went through, they are still learning how to be Chinese women in an American world. Even though they were born in America, they are still taught Chinese values and it is up to them whether or not they choose to continue following them.


  “A girl is like a young tree, she said. You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away. ” 


I absolutely love this book no matter how many times I read it. In each woman, I can see elements of myself, my mother, and my grandmother. My mom and grandma are both strong women that have gone through so much heartache and pain and only came out stronger in the end. I can only wish that I can have even a part of their strength. I think every single person should read this book, even if you aren't part Chinese, even if you aren't a woman. I think everyone can appreciate this book and find some strength in it.

Carolina Lopes

The writing and stories are beautiful and full of meaning, but I found the format to be very confusing - jumping from character to character and different timelines without identifying who is speaking was difficult to follow, and I think I missed a lot of the plot as a consequence.

The Joy Luck Club A Novel

Reviews

Highlights