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Summary: A wonderful book for immmigrant mothers and daughters
Review: I just finished reading The Joy Luck Club and I would highly recommend this book to all mothers and daughters. I am a first generation immigrant from India and there are many similarities in Indian and Chinese cultures. This book travels between America and China and explores intimately mothers and daughters of these two lands. It makes you smile, laugh and also cry. Amy Tan's intimate language flows easily and keeps you interested throughout. I have a daughter and this book intimately touched me in many ways as it explores the first generation immigrant mothers and their daughters. When I finished this book, I was ready to visit my local library and pick up her book "The Bonsetter's Daughter". Thank you Amy Tan for many hours of pleasure reading your book.
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Summary: The Joy Luck Club
Review: When I first read this book at the age of twelve, it was the best book I had ever read. It was moving, poignant, and easy to understand. I've read it three times since then and it remains one of my favorite novels of all time.
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Summary: My Favorite Book of all Time
Review: I know this might sounds like an overstatement, but it's true. I've read this book so many times, and it's full of highlighting, dog-eared pages. Wonderful pieces of wisdom and Amy Tan's writing style is magical!
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Summary: Beautiful and mythic
Review: Amy Tan weaves together the stories of 4 sets of mothers and daughters - each with unique personality and circumstance. The story is filled with rich details of growing up Chinese-American. It also overflows with truths universal to all women.The reader can never go wrong with Amy Tan. Her stories are a great read. I would also recommend the audiotape version of the books (which are read by the author). Sometimes it is nice to hear a story told aloud. In either media, Tan is a fantastic storyteller. Her more recent "Bonesetter's Daughter" is my other favorite.
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Summary: Its about making life a part of us regardless of location
Review: Human emotions remain unchanged through time and its a given that different generations who believe that their perspective of life is different and unique usually always come to a point were they discover that they are only making an interpretation of minor varitions of the same tune. In this book most of the characters feel that the common element that define them as persons is their chinese ethnicity. However, as you read their stories a subtle veil starts to open and they perceive points of connection to their elders, other members of the family and the nation which is now theier country, which is by far wider that initially they ever imagined.
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Summary: Culture Shock
Review: I was browsing the library for a book and because I was in a hurry I picked up the book nearest to my hand and made my way to the Librarian's counter. It is difficult for me to get into books and even more difficult to stay with them; I am always busy with school. I took The Joy Luck Club home and read the first couple of pages before I went to work and I fell in love with it. I came home and read about the mothers from China, telling their interesting stories. I've never read anything like it! One of the women married a boy much younger than she--I was so suprised at the things she went through! Another had to escape with her twin babies to avoid and attack from the Japanese. And those were just two of the many stories told. The culture was so different and interesting I couldn't put the book down. I've been on a reading vivaciously ever since.
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Summary: Wonderful Mother-Daughter Stories!
Review: The Joy Luck Club is a creative and unique novel that entwines the lives of four Chinese mothers and their daughters. Although, it is an engaging book, it is often times easy to become confused as you lose which daughter goes with what mother. Other than that though, it is interesting and true to life. It tells the story of the struggles mothers and daughters often have. The mothers and daughters experience hate, happiness, and despair. Many of these stories also deal with Chinese customs. I completely enjoyed the book.
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Summary: Joy Luck Club
Review: The Joy Luck Club is about four women who started a club. They named it the Joy Luck Club to celebrate their good fortune. They tell stories that happened to them when they were young and about their daughters and their lives. It also has a lot to do with the Chinese customs and beliefs. The main characters were Jing-Mei Woo and Waverly Jong. When Jing-Mei Woo was young she played the piano, as she grew older her mother passed away and she took her spot in the Joy Luck Club. After her mother passed away she travels to China with her father to meet her sisters. In her own way she makes her mothers wish come true by going to China to see her sisters. When Waverly was young she played chess and competed in championships to become the champion of little China. As she grew older her mother wasn't satisfied with any of the men she was with unless they were Chinese. She was trying to get her mother to accept Rich, the man she was going to marry. For their honeymoon, they are going to China, but she is scared that if she goes they won't let her return to America. Her mother tells her they will know she is American by the way she carries herself and that they can see it in her face that she is Americanized.
My favorite character was Waverly Jong because she was smart, funny, hard working, strong, and she knows what she wants in life. I enjoyed reading this book and learned a lot about the Chinese customs and cultures. My favorite part of this book is when Rose tells her husband that she is divorcing him, and that she will be keeping the house. My least favorite part of this book was the part when the nurses asked Ying-Ying St. Clair "What should we do with this lifeless baby?" Ying-Ying hurled a newspaper at them and told them "Wrap it up like a fish and throw it in the lake." If I could change one thing about this story it would be my least favorite part of this book, I would have her keep her baby and not treat it like a fish.
I would highly recommend this book to another person. It didn't get boring and it has a good plot. It mixes tenderness and bitter irony, sorrow and slicing wit. Anyone who wants to learn a little bit more about the Chinese culture should definitely read this book.
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Summary: Any Given Mother
Review: The Joy Luck Club In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan tells the stories of four families, the struggles of mothers and daughters. The daughters live the American dream, good education and greats jobs. The mothers, Chinese immigrants, impose their culture and background on their daughters, which results in stress in their relationships. In China the mothers all have a buried past. The daughters slowly become aware that there is more than meets the eye about their mothers.
The mothers play Mahjong together; each woman represents a wind direction. The book is like the winds, always changing direction. The mothers and daughters take turns telling their stories. The four mothers share their past and the daughters share their burden of their mothers. One mother was given away by her family to be married. She is able to find away out with her in law's weaknesses. Another mother is the daughter of a respected first wife who was widowed. Her mother is pulled though many twists and turns that end with death; after her death this daughter stands up to the man that caused her mother so much pain.
The mothers have extremely high hopes for their daughters, that they live the American dream, setting unattainable goals and high standards. One daughter is expected to learn the piano. She doesn't like it and never practices. Another Daughter is a chess champion, but decides to quit, because her mother takes credit for her wins. The mothers are trying to give the daughter what they didn't have, but at the sacrifice of their relationship with their daughter.
The daughters try relentlessly to meet their mothers' expectations. In spite of the fact that each one is successful in their own right, many years of pressure have left them with a sense of failure. One of the daughters is unhappily married and only realizes it when her mother comes to visits. The daughter reexamines her husband and herself under her mother's standards and found flaws that she can't over look. Another daughter is thirty-six and feels that she hasn't done anything with her life. She works freelance with a marketing company and is successful, but she doesn't see what she has done only what she could have done.
This book is a great tool to make you feel better about your mother. It offers interesting insight into the weird world of mothers' expectations. The mothers have a past and it affects their daughters even though they don't know the stories behind the crazy pressures.
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Summary: My Review of The Joy Luck Club
Review: The Joy luck Club is about a group of women who are joined together as friends and tell the stories of their lives. The main Characters in the book are Suyuan Woo and her daughter Jing-mei Woo, An-mei Hsu and her daughter Rose Hsu Jordan, Lindo Jong and her daughter Waverly Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair and her daughter Lena St. Clair. The main characters told the past stories of their childhood, and how they came to America. Throughout the story each woman told of some good adventures and some hard problems they dealt with in their lives. Jing-mei is my favorite character because I thought she is a nice person. I like her determination to be better than Waverly Jong, who is good at everything.
In some ways I can relate to some of the characters in the story. I can relate to Jing-mei because she always tries to be better than everyone else. I can relate to that because I used to do that when I was younger. I often tried to impress people. But, in the end, it never worked out, just like Jing-mei. While reading the book I shared some of the thoughts and feelings of the characters. As each woman told her story, I completely knew how she felt.
I really enjoyed reading the book. It gave me an idea of how the Chinese culture was compared to the American culture. The only part I would change would be that the author should give more detail about Jing-mei's new family.
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