The Bonesetter's Daughter

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book!
Review: I am not going to give a plot summary like so many other reviewers have done. I will simply say this: if you are looking for an excellent book, read The Bonesetter's Daughter. It's worth your time.

Rating:
Summary: My Review
Review: Chinese New Year just seemed to me to be an auspicious day to review this book. However, unlike the majority of the literate portion of the world, this was actually my first Tan novel, and although it rambled a bit in places, I found it quite similar to Chinese cuisine - satisfying while in progress, but leaving you hungry in a few hours.

Sorry to say that after finishing it just a few hours ago, I can't remember very much of it, even though I clearly recall finding certain parts quite intriguing.

The relationship between the generations of women was a key issue, backed up by as much calligraphy as was found in the movie "Hero", and included a National Geographic type-special on Peking Man and his/her bones.

Ruth Young is dealing with a career, a family, and a mother in the early throes of dementia. Her fiercely independent mother has kept a diary, to remind her of the rich, troubled and life-changing events that shaped her life, and ultimately her daughter's life. It is into this diary that Ruth plunges to find the missing piece of her past that has eluded her for so long.

Ruth's dealings with her mother are nowhere near as intriguing as the relationship between her mother and the woman who raised her, and some of the stories could be called "My Big Fat Chinese Family". Very noticeable is that men do not feature here as key players, relegated to being either gentle support figures, brutes, or dumb animals.

Not a bad book to start the Year of the Rooster, but nothing to crow about either.

Amanda Richards, February 9, 2005










Rating:
Summary: Tan Successfully Explores Mother-Daughter Relations Again
Review: Like many people, my introduction to Amy Tan was her novel, The Joy Luck Club. Thus, I was unsurprised to find another story, still exploring relationships between mothers and daughters, over time, culture changes, and intangibles that somehow seemed to keep a perceived chasm in their ability to communicate with one another. This story of a Chinese American woman raised by her mother- who had come alone to the United States believing in the certainty that she and her child were doomed. It is also about the attempts of her daughter to understand her mother and herself. The book is excellent, though I heard it on cassette tapes. I believe this made my experience of absorbing this story much richer, because one professional actress delivers the narrative, and the voice of the daughter's story, and I believe the voice of the mother, telling her story is read by the author herself. This enhances the book because of the pronounciation of the Chinese words, spoken correctly by both readers, the faint accent of the mother, and the frequently humerous hysterical imitations of the mother's english. It's an excellent book especially for those of us daughters seeking to understand both our mothers, and through them, ourselves.


Rating:
Summary: Quality Fiction
Review: The characters come to life for me in this novel. I can see them, hear them and sympathize with them. Tan has captured souls as well as their stories in a way that please readers of quality fiction. I've read it several times over and plan to read it again.

Rating:
Summary: my first Amy Tan - excellent
Review: Five stars for this book, which I listened to unabridged on tape, narrated by Joan Chen and Amy Tan. It's disappointing to read other reviewers feel this book is too similar to Tan's other works.

Rating:
Summary: A MESSAGE TO CERTAIN OTHER REVIEWERS
Review: I would like you to know this is a great novel. Amy Tan is excellent. Everybody knows that. But how dare anyone "tear out" a chapter of a book because of "raunchy" language? You have no right to personally edit someone else's creation. That's appalling You should be ashamed of yourself :(

Rating:
Summary: Excellent writing for the most part
Review: Tan is a talented writer. I find her style to be both interesting and funny. I was disappointed to find bad language, though, and I'm going to tear out chapter 6 before passing the book on to my aunt. It was a little raunchy.

Rating:
Summary: An all right book by a (usually) wonderful author
Review: This is a perfectly okay book, and doesn't take too much concentration so it would work on a plane or a beach, BUT...after reading Tan's other books, I'm disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: I think this is the best book Amy Tan has ever written! It is better than her other books, which are great too. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Complex relationship betw Chinese mothers and daughters
Review:
The always complex relationships between mothers and daughters seems to be even more so between Chinese mothers and daughters - and most extremely so when the daughters are American-born. Amy Tan's multi-layered family tale is set against the backdrop of her mother's progressive Alzheimer's and the confusion of past with present that is a recurring and ever-worsening problem for both the mother, Lu Ling, and her daughter, Ruth. Much of the tale is told through a series of journals Lu Ling kept when she was a young woman in China, and the comparison between her situation then and now is poitnant.
Not quite The Joy Luck Club, but very, very good.