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The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan
Back of the Book:
Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.
With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.
My Thoughts:
I liked this book. Specifically, I love the way Amy Tan writes. The book is more a series of short stories that weave together to tell a history of girlfriends, mothers and daughters and a changing culture. Her sense of humor and sarcasm are easily read in the complicated relationships.
I liked it, and I would recommend it. All of the girls in bookclub liked it to. We read it in May so it was a perfect choice for Mother's Day.
I also decided to watch the movie again, just because it had been so long since I had seen it. It was also done well. It was very close to the book, which I like.
I'll be joining:
