Love Made of Heart

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Summary: Love Made of Heart, November 9,2002
Review: It's been years since I've devoured a novel as quickly as I did "Love Made of Heart."
The vivid scenes and realistic dialog immeditely immersed me in Teresa LeYung Ryan's novel about Ruby and her Asian American family's struggles with mental illness, abuse, social expectations, and, finally, love. I was totally engrossed from the first page to the last. In a nutshell, it's a good story, well told.

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Summary: Multi-layered Asian Insights
Review: Love Made of Heart at once engages and makes the reader want more depth. It is a multi-layered story that coaxes out the reticent nature of the Asian culture. The author Teresa LeYung Ryan is a very brave person to tackle such a serious subject as domestic violence and share through her main character, Ruby Lin, her coming to terms with a troubled, violent past and developing a more realistic relationship with her mother. It is a story we can all relate to from any culture and especially helps us understand the culture of silence that keeps children from expressing their need for help. The story is uplifting as it shows how courageous Ruby Lin is in her determination to understand and heal her childhood wounds. I would recommend it to everyone who enjoys a "real" story that ultimately triumphs and helps us understand our human condition. I do think the story could have delved more deeply into Ruby's feelings. The overall story is deceptively light even though it deals with a heavy subject. I look forward to her next novel, she has an authentic voice that is much needed today.

I have also enjoyed her readings from her novel. She has a strong, skilled presentation that captures your attention and holds your interest.

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Summary: Love Made of Heart is not for cynics!
Review: Love Made of Heart engrossed me enough for me to read it in a few days. I especially liked the mother-daughter interactions, which are poignant, refreshing, and sometimes humorous. The problems faced by Ruby, the main character, are universal and connect readers to their own humanity, which is what I look for in a book and what this central relationship does quite well.

I also liked the excitement generated by various predicaments characters experience and the tension created when they behave in unexpected ways before the explanation unfolds. Love Made of Heart is a good read and a heart-warming story.

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Summary: LeYung Ryan Writes A Winner
Review: Love Made of Heart is a book made of wisdom. Teresa LeYung Ryan writes of mothers and daughters, but the truth of her fiction strikes much deeper; beyond family, beyond gender, all the way to the fragile, universal heart."
Frank Baldwin
Author of Balling the Jack and Jake & Mimi

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Summary: Heartwarming
Review: Love Made of Heart is a fascinating read, which delves into many issues--mental illness, domestic violence, and the Chinese-immigrant experience.
At times I found myself near tears--at others, smiling and nodding as I wandered down life's path with the main character, Ruby Lin, a young woman who is working hard during the day and going to school at night, UNTIL she is forced to stop and deal with her mentally-ill mother. It is Ruby who ends up in therapy--not her mother. And,it is through that psychotherapist/patient relationship that we learn about Ruby's violent childhood growing up in America. Then, Ruby--I-will-never-get-involved-with-a violent-man-Ruby-- marries Mr. Wrong.
As a busy person, I'm usually not able to get through too much of a book at one sitting--unless it's good. Love Made of Heart kept me reading, as I was eager to know how dear Ruby would fare.
And, it's a story that has stayed with me, made me think--about Love, the use of the word, and is it really made of heart?

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Summary: I loved this book.
Review: Love Made of Heart is a very gripping story of 27-year-old Ruby Lin's journey toward accepting herself and her mother and coming to terms with her past. Ruby is a totally believable character, struggling with her mother's mental illness, her Asian background, and her relationship with her abusive father. In her attempts to help her mother, Ruby ends up helping herself as well.

I couldn't put this book down. It is a fantastic story of a mother and daughter, of two sisters, and of the importance of surrogate elders. Although it is a sad story, it is also very hopeful story. I strongly recommend it. If you enjoy books by Amy Tan, Carol Shields and Marian Keyes you will enjoy this book as well. I'm very much looking forward to LeYung Ryan's next book.

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Summary: I loved this book.
Review: Love Made of Heart is a very gripping story of 27-year-old Ruby Lin's journey toward accepting herself and her mother and coming to terms with her past. Ruby is a totally believable character, struggling with her mother's mental illness, her Asian background, and her relationship with her abusive father. In her attempts to help her mother, Ruby ends up helping herself as well.

I couldn't put this book down. It is a fantastic story of a mother and daughter, of two sisters, and of the importance of surrogate elders. Although it is a sad story, it is also very hopeful story. I strongly recommend it. If you enjoy books by Amy Tan, Carol Shields and Marian Keyes you will enjoy this book as well. I'm very much looking forward to LeYung Ryan's next book.

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Summary: Leyung Ryan has universal appeal
Review: Publisher's Weekly's snide review notwithstanding, this is a lovely first novel. Rather than trying to be a fresh 'Asian' voice, the LeYung Ryan seemed to be using an Asian-american protagonist to deal with universal themes: The difficulties of being pulled in two cultural directions, the wounds of childhood, the awkward role reversal that takes place when a child is called on to care for a parent, the need to take a hard look at the past to gain freedom from its baggage. These themes and her treatment of them is neither cloying nor coy.This author shows a lot of promise and I'm looking forward to her next novel.

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Summary: A lovely story
Review: Ryan's book is a heartfelt, compelling story of one woman's quest to find love and forgiveness, both for herself and her relationships. The main character, Ruby, weaves in and out of her Chinese American background as she tries to find pieces of each culture that will help her become the strong woman she aspires to be.

Ruby begins her narration with the night her mother is taken from their apartment by policemen. Ruby's mother is mentally ill, and cannot function without medication. The struggle with shame, fear, and guilt over not being able to protect her mother, or forgive herself, propels Ruby into therapy. Her journey into eventual resolution takes Ruby through memories into the past, where the reader catches glimpses of an unstable childhood fraught with confusion, and experiences with violent domestic abuse. Along the way, the adult Ruby stumbles through intimate relationships, learns to deal with the realities of having a mentally ill parent, and makes a dear friend who becomes a surrogate grandmother. This nurturing character, Mrs. Nussbaum, provides a voice of wisdom to the story that envelops it in reassurance. By the end, as Ruby fits all of the pieces together, her self love extends outward into a mature forgiveness of her parents, and opens into a wider circle of giving. The reader is let into the gentle secret that love is an endless, self-generating energy that rewards the giver as much as the receiver.

This book is a real page-turner, and I recommend it to anyone!

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Summary: Heartbreakingly Beautiful
Review: Teresa Leyoung Ryan spins a tale of deep thoughtful characters and a sad story you can't put down. It is about important issues such as mental illness, childhood scars and asian pride. The dynamics between Ruby and her mother are wonderful and you can really see Ruby as a real person not just a fictional character.I think this story will hit right at home for many people and does well not to make you dislike Ruby for things she feels yet she still isn't unrelatably perfect. I would encourage all women to read this wonderful mother daughter story.