Rating: 
Summary: Loved it----laughed & laughed!
Review: I wanted to read this book, as I'd loved The Joy Luck Club, and we also have her gorgeous children's book, "Sagwa the Siamese Chinese cat". We're big Siamese cat fans in this house, and my kids love the PBS show "Sagwa".
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Summary: What is the opposite of fate? Self knowledge?
Review: I was privileged to receive an advance reader's copy of this latest book by Amy Tan. In her novels, Tan uses material culled from her own life and her family's history. But I believe this is her first nonfiction book, and in it she displays the same qualities for which her fiction is so appreciated: humor, poignancy, revelation, a little magic - and always fascination with the world and our relationships within it. In The Opposite of Fate, she reveals herself. Especially moving is a part in which she realizes she only learned who her mother really was as she was writing her obituary. A collection of "musings," more than a chronological memoir, The Opposite of fate is intimate, literary, and wonderful.
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Summary: Good, But Not Great Amy Tan
Review: I was really excited that Amy Tan decided to do this non-fiction book of essays. I really wanted to learn more about her as a person and writer. Unfortunately, it's a mish-mash of essays, e-mails and prepared speeches written over different times and a lot of it overlaps. The essays are categorized under different themes, but still doesn't flow really well. I wish she had written a straight-forward memoir which I think would have been fascinating instead of giving us glimpses of her life here and there. For example, after being married for appx. 30 years, it would have been interesting to her "musings" about marriage, etc. There are some really moving essays here, esp. "Last Week" about her mother's final days.
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Summary: Setting the Record Straight on Amy Tan
Review: I would highly recommend this book to anyone, and not just writers, women, North Americans with Asian heritage or people with any such specific demographics. A charming and well-written book that is true to the memoir genre where you get to know the author rather than the events of his/her life. There are enough interesting stories from Ms Tan's past, especially the cultural and cross-cultural ones - the former involving her Chinese ancestry and the latter involving her American and Chinese heritage. The reader knows plenty about the events of her life, but only the ones which matter to her, which, ultimately, are the ones that really matter in getting to know someone. However, Ms Tan's goal and focus was to set the record straight on Amy Tan, what she's like and where she stands on many issues, and that she did. There are many enlightening essays with Ms Tan's views and questions on a variety of interesting topics, with notes on how they've impacted her life. The writing style, vocabulary and organization of stories are very typical and symbolic of Ms Tan's ways. I feel like I partly know her now, as in having a feel of the gist of what she is like, how she thinks and sees the world, and that I would find her very amiable if I met her. I only wish every memoir could tell me as much about the writer. PS If you are writing essays on Ms Tan's books and/or her, take her adviace and avoid using Cliff's Notes. Cliff never met her. Net sources are even worse!
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Summary: This Girl Can Write
Review: I'm a sucker for all of Amy Tan's writing, and while this is something completely different from her usual Chinese-American Mother-Daughter stories, I found it extremely interesting and well-written. In this book, Ms Tan steps out of the shadows and talks directly to her audience, rather than hide behind her fictional characters. It will be interesting to see where she goes from here with her writing career. Only time will tell. Meanwhile, borrow and read this book.
Charlie
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Summary: A book of Musings from Amy Tan
Review: I'm not a fan of biographies, I care more about the result of what people did rather than what it was they did. But I liked what Tan did with her "biography". As the title says it is a book of musings. Musings about herself and her writing. Being interested in writing and having enjoyed Amy Tan's writing this was enough to interest me. Her writing and honesty were enough to keep me interested. She talks about her childhood and her mother and how these have not only influenced her life but her writing. She talks about her writing and how she got started writing and the challenges of writing. There's also musings of love, loss, friends and family, trips and journeys battles won and lost. The last musing or chapter deals with an illness/disease she has, Lyme Disease. She is able to talk about it and her struggle to discover and cope with it without coming across as preachy or whiny. She's not looking for undue sympathy or to convert. She is just relating something that has happened to her. If it educates you or causes you to feel some emotion towards her that's good and if not at least now you know. I think that is reflected in a lot of her writing. I for one was glad to listen. I give it an A on the StuPage Reviews.
Rating:
Summary: A book of Musings from Amy Tan
Review: I'm not a fan of biographies, I care more about the result of what people did rather than what it was they did. But I liked what Tan did with her "biography". As the title says it is a book of musings. Musings about herself and her writing. Being interested in writing and having enjoyed Amy Tan's writing this was enough to interest me. Her writing and honesty were enough to keep me interested. She talks about her childhood and her mother and how these have not only influenced her life but her writing. She talks about her writing and how she got started writing and the challenges of writing. There's also musings of love, loss, friends and family, trips and journeys battles won and lost. The last musing or chapter deals with an illness/disease she has, Lyme Disease. She is able to talk about it and her struggle to discover and cope with it without coming across as preachy or whiny. She's not looking for undue sympathy or to convert. She is just relating something that has happened to her. If it educates you or causes you to feel some emotion towards her that's good and if not at least now you know. I think that is reflected in a lot of her writing. I for one was glad to listen. I give it an A on the StuPage Reviews.
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Summary: So I haven't finished it yet, but so far so good!
Review: If you're an Amy Tan fan (as am I), you'll love this humorous and touching book. So far, I've read about her friend's death, the inspiration for several books, her family history, her take on CliffNotes and more. I love every second of it. Amy is a writer that I can relate to and learn from. The voice that appears in her novels is consistant with the one in this book.
For those of you who are waiting her next work of fiction, there are bits of nonfiction stories throughout this book that will take care of any "fix" you might need until the next one arrives.
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Summary: What make's Amy Tan Tick?
Review: Often very funny but just as often downright depressing, this is the story of the life of one of America's favorite writers, written by the one person who will always be the world's foremost authority on this subject, Amy Tan herself. To set the record straight on who Tan is and what life experiences and thought processes gave rise to her writing, and to reclaim the final words on this subject from the many supposed literary experts from "Cliff" of CliffsNotes (who may have to move to a remote island somewhere, in shame) to myriad obnoxious "expert" academics (who may have to move to the island with Cliff), Amy Tan lays out her life, from her paper on why she loves the library, written at age eight, to the interview she was about to begin in NYC for CNN on the morning of September 11th, 2001 when the Muslim world began World War 3. This book is a collection of chapters, speeches, emails, etc. compiled to give her readers a clear picture of precisely what makes this writer "tick". At times her stories and memories overlap. The somewhat patchwork nature of the book gives rise to some redundancy. But all in all this is a great book for those who have read Ms. Tan's other works and who would like to know more about the person herself. This is certainly not a book for first time Amy Tan readers. This is a book exclusively for already dedicated Tan readers. You'll come away from "The Opposite of Fate" with a clearer understanding of the psychological baggage Tan's mother imposed upon her and left her with. In fact, you will not like her mother, regardless of the fact that Tan continues to try to rationalize her life-long behavior. You'll also come away from this book wanting to learn much more about, of ALL things, Lyme Disease, an affliction that has apparently pretty well at least temporarily devastated Amy Tan. Being in the Northeastern U.S. and being outdoors a great deal, I have myself tested for Lyme disease regularly. Apparently Ms. Tan should have been doing the same. In any event, this is definitely a "Five Star" read for fans of Amy Tan's writing so pick it up, settle in, and prepare to get the story straight from the dragon's mouth.
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Summary: Curiously Incomplete Memoir From A Top Author
Review: One of the typical purposes of an author's memoirs is to provide understanding about their creative influences. If that standard is applied to The Opposite of Fate, then one would have to conclude that Amy Tan's influences are narrow. Tan spends much of the book obsessing over two factors: her mother and her fear of mortality. So dominating are these issues that other plausible influences, like her 30 year marriage and her relationship with her living brother, are barely mentioned. I was left wondering if these other factors really are trivial to Tan's creative processes, or if the two main influences are so large that she is still coming to terms with them. Regardless of the reason, her reluctance to discuss other influences gave me the impression that the image Tan presented in the book was incomplete. Tan's selection of writings also added to the sense of incompleteness. I found it disappointing that more than half of the book's stories were reprinted from earlier publications. Because of her reliance on older material, I felt that I really didn't know Tan much better at the end of book than I did when I began it. I'm sure that readers who have never experienced Tan's wonderful writing style will enjoy her sense of humor and insights into writing in general. But, for those who are familiar with these qualities and are looking to gain a better understanding of Tan as a person and a writer, then The Opposite of Fate will seem redundant.
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