Rating: 
Summary: *mothers and daughters*
Review: In this enchanting book, by Amy Tan, it shows the story of how Chinese parents who are first generation Chinese American differ so much from their children. Ruth, the daughter, is a chic "book doctor" living in San Francisco. LuLing, her mother, came to San Francisco after years of hardship and struggle in China and Hong Kong. Amy Tan vividly shows this mother-daughter relationship in this three-part novel. The first third sets the mood of how Ruth's life is. Her life is modern, living with her long time beau, Art, and his two daughters. Ruth always worries about her mother, who's having the early signs of Alzheimer's. Ruth thinks that LuLing's mistakes in birthdays, ages, dates, and people are simply part of the Alzheimer's. But soon sees that these are bits to a story that is being unraveled. The second third tells the story of LuLing's life in China with Precious Auntie and family. It tells the story of her right of passage into adulthood where things that she thought was real was actually a plot to cover up the truth. In her tale, bits of Chinese culture are weaved into the story, the superstitious ways, Chinese traditions, Chinese folklore, and the thought of pre-destiny. The wrap up in the last third is how all of the pieces of LuLing's "mistakes" come together in the translation of her memoirs when Ruth realizes the truth. Ruth realizes the hardships that her mother went through in order for her to have the best. But Ruth also becomes conscious of how pieces of Chinese culture are also weaved into her.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely interesting and well written!
Review: Ruth, a ghostwriter for women's self help books, lives with her boyfriend Art and his two daughters in San Francisco. She becomes increasingly concerned about her mother's dementia. Ruth finds it hard to tell what is real and not real in her mother's mind until she comes across a diary recording her mother's past. Ruth discovers that her mother LuLing is from the town of Immortal Heart in China. There her family was well known, not only for their ink business, but for her father's being a famous "Bonesetter" who treated his patients with "modern, try-anything, and traditional" medicine. Crucial to his practice of traditional medicine were dragon bones gathered by LuLing's family from the Monkey's Jaw, a secret place in a cave in the deepest ravines of a dry riverbed. LuLing's most beloved nursemaid, Precious Auntie, taught her the secret of unearthing these dragon bones. This beautiful story, like other Amy Tan novels, dwells on women's relationships. As the novel opens, we explore Ruth's feelings of frutration as a daughter trying to deal with an independent, yet increasingly demented mother. We also see her trying to be a mother to her boyfriend's two young daughters. As we read the diary of LuLing, we see how hidden family secrets twist women's relationships into never-anticipated situations. This work is so beautiful because it deals with real emotions, different for each individual, in two different cultures, settings, and times. It helps the reader imagine what it would be like to be in any of those sitations by showing one family's experiences within that realm of existence.
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: Another cross-cultural multi-generational gem from Amy Tan
Review: The Bonesetter's Daughter is a wonderful example of Amy Tan's considerable skill as a master storyteller. Here she exposes to us, layer by layer, the deeply complex relationship between Ruth Young, a ghostwriter of self-help books, and her mother, LuLing. Realizing she is having problems with her memory long before Ruth suspects it, Luling painstakingly writes the facts of her life as best she remembers it, so that her story doesn't die with her failing memory. The start and finish of this novel, which chronicles Ruth's struggle in coming to terms with her mother througout her life and Ruth's stumbling upon LuLing's memoirs, frame the middle section of the book, which consist of the memoirs themselves. I found the novel absolutely fascinating, and read through it in a single sitting. Two mother-daughter stories are presented here, as the relationship between LuLing and her mother are also central to the telling of this wonderful story. Amy Tan does a superb job of presenting these separate yet connected narratives into a masterpiece of a book, blending character, dialogue, and narrative seemlessly (and seemingly effortlessly) together. Readers of the author's previous novels will find similarity between The Bonesetter's Daughter and her previous novels. Some readers, as I, will find everything comfortably familiar. On the other hand, it is only fair to criticize the formulaic sameness of her work. The repeated exploration of the relationship between a Chinese-born mother and her american born daughter is a bit off-putting; as is the parallel telling of two generation's narrative. Also, I don't find that her male characters are realistically drawn, and the relationship struggles between the daughter and her significant other (at least in Ms. Tan's last two books) seem rather superficial. These (admittedly) rather minor complaints are the only thing that keeps me from giving the book five stars.
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: 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.
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