Rating: 
Summary: A good, yet confusing piece of literature
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Kingston's novel about how difficult it was growing up Chinese-American in both time periods. If you're torn between a reading list for school, like I, think about reading this book. It's not the easiest book to understand, but will teach you something and help you to shape you opinions on certain criteria. I have only read this book once through, and probably won't read it a second time, but if you have to fully understand this novel, then I suggest you read it twice so that you can catch something if you missed it. It's not the best book that I have ever read, but it was enjoyable enough for school and for writing a report on.
Rating: 
Summary: Take your time and read something else
Review: This book opens up strongly enough. The visual images and the story at first propels and urges the reader to continue. Then it drops dead. On or around the 70th page the book begins to get repetitive and useless. The images of white people as ghost is weak. The connections drawn amoung social classes and class consciousness is useless. For the time it takes to read the book and the effort a different book on this same subject material would be advised.
Rating: 
Summary: "all i wanted was a change, i warn't particular" - huck finn
Review: Reading part like a page ripped from the Brother's Grimm Fairy Tales and part like "The Asian-American Female's Handbook for Life in the U.S", The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston explores the underbelly of female Asian-American culture in the 20th century.
Some of the stories, although fictitious in their presentation, give those normally unexposed to Asian culture insight into Asian women's rights within their culture, or lack thereof.
Most of the book is based around the fact that Kingston is seemingly unwanted by her family because she is a girl. From the first few chapters we can sense this as Kingston tells stories about Chinese families killing their baby daughters as if it was their divine right--because girls were useless compared to boys, who could be educated.
The book also demonstrates this attitude by showing how Kingston's grandparents favor her brothers over her and her sisters, who he calls names and regularly degrades at family get-togethers.
However, Kingston seems to play a sympathetic role towards her parents, as demonstrated in the chapters in which Kingston narrates her mother's experience in medical school in Asia. Although her mother learned unorthodox techniques that weren't of merit in the United States, Kingston never fails to mention the hardships her mother went through to accomplish school while her husband was away in America.
Although Kingston's family history is interesting, the book would be incomplete without the metaphors, imagery, and fairy tale-like comparisons Kingston provides in almost every chapter.
The first chapter of the book is like a direct text from an ancient Chinese folktale scroll, the story of a young girl sent away from home to train to be a warrior, to nurture the fighting spirit inside her.
The theme of the strength of the spirit within echoes throughout the rest of the story. In once instance Kingston literally struggles to find a voice for herself, as her tongue is partially cut off, impairing her speech. Although she learns English in America, she really puts her new language to use years later when she communicates with her siblings about the ignorance of her grandfather and elders.
Although some references are made to male relatives, little emphasis is placed on males as being chief characters in the book.
The three main characters in the book are Kingston, her mother, and her aunt. Through her mother, Kingston masters the art of "talk-story", which leads Kingston back to China, where things were somewhat more stable and less frightening than America.
The talk-story influence reigns supreme throughout the book, which is almost a tribute to talk-story itself. Borrowing the ideas of ghosts, imagery, and fantasy that make talk-story so entertaining and successful, Kingston manages to wield her own type of writing that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.
However, Kingston truly flourishes when describing her mentally-unstable aunt who arrived to America from China in her senior years. The aunt is used in the story to almost resemble the type of woman warrior Kingston writes about in the book's first chapter--the woman who is not afraid to be herself, no matter how insane her family believes her to be.
The book's other main characters are 'ghosts', which have two distinctly different meanings in the book. In her mother's world of talk-story, ghosts are supernatural beings, while they are non-Chinese Americans in Kingston's version.
However, ghosts often have similar goals, no matter what their role: to destroy potential success.
In China, ghosts try to smother Kingston's mother in medical school, while the ghosts in America (police ghost, social worker ghost), all keep a watchful eye on the Hong family.
Although the constant metaphors, setting changes, and character names can be confusing, the book gives a rewarding ending.
The entire premise of The Woman Warrior is to switch back and forth between Old-China talk-story, told by Kingston's mother, and America talk-story, narrated by Kingston.
The differences in the stories communicate the idea that women are treated unequally in Chinese culture, yet, they hit a deeper chord, as well. The stories showcase the differences in talk-story over the ages, they highlight the Chinese supernatural vs. the American reality, a world in which fictitious ghosts are given a body.
While Kingston presents her mother as an almost obsessive student in China, we are at the same time painted a portrait of her mother as a sweaty old woman working in a laundromat.
The differences in the two stories make up the core of the book, exploring both the old and the new, while taking time to equally appreciate both.
Rating: 
Summary: An amazing work
Review: I read this book in an honors lit class in college, at the age of 36. This book is jarring, beautiful, painful, memorable, exquisite, and transformative. I have no personal experience with the X-American experience (chinese-american, african-american, etc.), and still this marvelous book speaks to me with an eloquent and imaginative voice. Anyone who has ever felt marginalized in any way can identify with this story.The story of the woman warrior, Fa Mu Lan, sat in my brain for a couple of years, percolating and resonating. Before riding out into battle, Fa Mu Lan's parents carve the family history into her back so she will carry her strength with her into battle, and so that her body can still be used as a weapon if she's killed ("look, this is what we're fighting for."). Two years ago I had kanji characters tattooed down the length of spine describing MY strength. I always tell the story of this book and Fa Mu Lan when people ask about my spine. I really mean it when I say this book profoundly affected me. If you are interested in a beautifully-told story of identity formation and development, of struggles at the margin, of power gained through adversity, of lyrical wonder, this is the book for you. The individual chapters are kind of stories unto themselves, and they string together like Chinese lanterns to shed a beautiful light on your journey. READ THIS BOOK. I'll be glad you did.
Rating: 
Summary: Maxine the Warrior
Review: Maxine Hong Kingston the author of The Woman Warrior is a woman of many stories. Kingston talks of her childhood accounts growing up as a Chinese American. She speaks about her understanding of Chinese culture and American culture. Her family's way of life and her mothers story myths. The Woman Warrior is the author herself; she is a warrior because of what she learns throughout the book. The stories told by the author are meant to display the author's courage and bravery. As a Chinese American she persevered to overcome what she had been told she would become. She became what she wanted to become, a female member of her family who was independent and able to be self-sufficient. She transformed from her mothers Chinese traditions to her own standards of living.
The memoir starts out with great detail and flow, the detail remains eminent throughout the book but the flow does not. The first chapter of the book is the easiest to follow, the following chapters are much harder to understand what Maxine is trying to tell the reader. "Her fingers and palms became damp, shrinking at the ghost's thick short hair like an animals coat, which slides against warm solidity as human flesh slides against muscles and bones."(115) The book is full of captivating sentences, which seems to be a problem because there is almost too many of them at times. The author seems to go into such a magnitude of detail it makes the memoir hard to follow. Throughout the stories the author learns many valuable lessons, which have had impact on her life. Kingston wants the readers to understand how she feels and thinks, yet it seems she can't describe her feelings in a simple manner. Although this is not a bad thing, for an average reader it is hard to put the descriptive mood into meaning. An avid reader should be able to translate the book easier.
This piece of writing is great for those looking for a story that they may be able to relate to, only if the reader has the patience to piece some of the puzzle together. Readers looking for an easy reading book would not want to look here. The structure of the book is set for an advanced level of understanding. If someone is looking for a personal account of a Chinese American younger childhood, this book is the one.
Rating:
Summary: The Woman Warrior: a modern classic
Review: I read through some of the reviews, particularly those posted by highschool students puzzled by why they had been 'assigned' to read this book, and was stirred to write something as well that would hopefully communicate what I love about this book.
I read it for the first time in highschool too. At the time, I was a bookworm (and still am) - but nearly all the books I had read and liked were by white men. I'm only thirty, but when I was in highschool, even reading The Bluest Eye, another modern classic, was considered a controversial move for AP English. Amid important works by Renaissance writers like Shakespeare and Marvell, Victorian novelists, a little poetry and drama standby's like Hedda Gabler and An Enemy of the People (ok, I went to a great highschool) -- we were occasionally tossed a modern American writer, but always a white and male one. There was nothing wrong with those writers - I read Catcher in the Rye in a few afternoons and enjoyed it - but I felt something was missing. My highschool was 60% "minority" - a melting pot of Asians,African American, Latino, recent immigrants from Poland, Russia, a mix. It seemed only reasonable to broaden our reading - not to crowd out the Shakespeare, William James, John Donne, John Steinbeck in any way at all -- but to give us evidence that there were writers in the world who had been able to interpret their own distinctive cultural and religious experiences using the tools of the classical 'AP English' canon. Writers like Maxine Hong Kingston proved that the master's tools can be used to dismantle the master's house - to build a new house. She introduced me to the notion of 'talkstory'; she explored a language between the English she was hearing and the Chinese she was still dreaming in. The language she uses is different; was completely new at the time. She was inventing the genre of 'immigrant literature'.
There are a lot of writers who can teach you things you can't learn from THe Woman Warrior; but there is something there, dreams communicated, a compressed language vibrating with rage and passion, that you can't ignore either. The 'flatness' of the voice criticized by one highschool student is, on another view, the numbness of someone violated, again and again, by everyday acts of racism and sexism. Someone beyond the point of pain from "the centuries of insults carved into her skin." The fact is, it's going to continue to be taught; Maxine Hong Kingston has made it into the canon. So to the highschool students who posted some really negative reviews, I would say: wait a while. Come back to the book. Think it over. Above all - don't get so angry (at the fact that you had to read the book for class, etc). The book may have outraged you because it didn't attempt to entertain or apologize; in it, the writer is most concerned with telling the truth.It's a political book. But there's a human story there, and magical elements - even if you do not feel you can relate to the social justice and anti-discrimination movements that this book nurtured, we are all living here in the US, "the immigrants" aren't going anywhere, and this might be a story that tells you a new truth if you give it a chance to draw you in.
Rating:
Summary: A novel that help me...
Review: The woman warrior was a novel that I could relate to. I am also an Asian American woman and I have been through the experiences that the main character goes through. The themes are very spiritual with an Asian touch... an Asian person can comprehend it completely. The story is told through the eyes of an Asian American girl who is stuck between two cultures which are the American culture and her Asian heritage. It is a powerful novel that brings out the conflicts that a woman of color faces. Kingston uses her words as a weapon to slash the enemy. This novel has help me to find my inner peace and I recommend it to anyone who is Asian American or to someone who is interested in Asian American studies.
Rating:
Summary: I'm sure there are better books out there...
Review: I was forced to read this as a summer reading assignment for my AP English class last summer. I'm an avid reader and usually enjoy the assignment, but not this time. The plot and character development are truly lack luster in this novel. There is a surprising lack of insight in this book which makes reading this book an even more painful experience. I literally tossed the book into the swimming pool in disgust while reading it. I wish I knew of better books available about the Chinese-American experience, but I do not. I'm sorry, I hate to complain unless I've got something to sugest, but this time I cannot keep quiet. Avoid this literary disgrace if you can.
Rating:
Summary: More like 3 and a half
Review: Kingston's book has some fantastic passages that tie you tightly to the page, but, unfortunatly, inbetween these gripping moments, her thoughts and words drift in a random fashion that makes it difficult to pay attention. The book is divided into four sections, interweaving myth, reality, history and present day (well, the present day of the narration)into a fragmented portrait of Chinese/Chinese-American culture. At times, the narrative is amazingly insightful, I found myself learning a lot about Kingston and her families displacement. At other times I felt lost, and had a difficult time digesting the words. (I would get to the bottom of the page and realize I had been thinking about something else). I recommend this book; when her narrative sticks to the story at hand, it's a wonderful, thought provoking account. The parts that drag or more to the point lose themselves don't by any means weigh out the good.
Rating:
Summary: She Is What She's Got
Review: It's surprising you can reach Advanced Placement English III in America without the literary perception of understanding SOME merit of "The Woman Warrior". The most obvious merit of this book is its profound juxtaposition of Chinese and American culture. Maxine Hong Kingston is in the perfect position for this; she's attended Chinese school yet her English is good enough to get her into Berkeley (no doubt SHE got more out of her AP English class) so she understands both languages, and thus both cultures. She is aware of the profound gap between the two worlds (as Amy Tan etc. are not, I love Amy Tan, but she just isn't as bicultural) and she SHOWS this, by the passage about the "too-loud" Chinese against their whispering American counterparts, by her juxtaposition of a reworking of the Fa Mulan epic and her "disappointing" life in America. I'm sorry for being rude about the AP English III reviewer, but this book has so much OBVIOUS merit for me... I realize the other reviewer may have had a seriously limited, anglocentric literary education (but even a good anglocentric education would've helped in seeing the merits) or may be used to having his hand held by the writer through every description and plot turn, but for those of you who are interested in coming into awareness, an awareness of how DIFFERENT the Chinese are (and how similar they are in some respects, but I think it's the difference that's emphasized), "The Woman Warrior" is a fascinating, paradoxically illuminating book in that respect. I didn't enjoy this book as I enjoyed, say, Joy Luck Club, but I THINK about it a lot and I think it's IMPORTANT... it expands awareness, really, because it constantly hints of lands beyond the English language, and you get such a sense of what's OUT THERE.
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