Chinese Women and Their Daughters

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I have had this book on my "to-read" list for years, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. It follows 4 mother/daughter pairs. All of the mothers were born in China and immigrated to the U.S., and all of the daughters were born in the U.S. and raised by their immigrant mothers.

Each chapter in the book is a short story told from the perspective of one of the mothers or daughters, and yet each of the chapters is related (implicitly or explicitly) to the other chapters in the book. There is a lot of instances of the daughters complaining about their mothers and the strange cultural traditions and beliefs that they still carry around, and a lot of stories of the mothers growing up in China that explains those traditions and beliefs.

While overall I enjoyed the book, I did find myself having a hard time remembering who was whose mother or daughter, and keeping the stories straight. I had to keep flipping back to past chapters in the book to remind myself what I already knew about the character I was currently reading about.

I have read other Amy Tan books before, and my favorite is still The Bonesetter's Daughter, I think (an in truth, the two books have very similar story lines). But I can definitely see why The Joy Luck Club has become such an important modern book because of it's lessons on culture, tradition, family and cross-generational understanding.



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