Book Review ~ The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

"The wisest and most captivating novel tan has written." -The Boston Globe
Set in San Francisco and in a remote village of Southwestern China, Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses is a tale of American assumptions shaken by Chinese ghosts and broadened with hope. In 1962, five-year-old Olivia meets the half-sister she never knew existed, eighteen-year-old Kwan from China, who sees ghosts with her "yin eyes." Decades later, Olivia describes her complicated relationship with her sister and her failing marriage, as Kwan reveals her story, sweeping the reader into the splendor and violence of mid-nineteenth century China. With her characteristic wisdom, grace, and humor, Tan conjures up a story of the inheritance of love, its secrets and senses, its illusions and truths.

Newsweek: Tan has once more produced a novel somewhat like a hologram: turn it this way and find Chinese-Americans shopping and arguing in San Francisco; turn it that way and the Chinese of Changmian village in 1864 are fleeing into the hills to hide from the rampaging Manchus. . . .The Hundred Secret Senses doesn't simply return to a world but burrows more deeply into it, following new trails to fresh revelations.

Biography: With her acclaimed 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club and its successors, Amy Tan succeeded in revealing the Chinese-American sensibility to readers in unprecedented numbers. In mystical, winding prose, she draws the boundaries and commonalities between generations of women who are related, but born worlds apart.

I found this book to be a little slow and confusing at the start but I am so glad I stuck it out. By the time I was at the middle of the book I was so engrossed that I was staying up at night until my eyes were too tired to see just to find out what Kwan's next story was going to be. (Hmmmmmmmm . . . now that I read this, I wonder if this might be why I've been so "foggy" the past few days.)

I love the ending; very bittersweet and nothing quite proven. I would recommend this book to anyone as a great read.

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