"The Joy Luck Club"

by Amy Tan, 1989, 288p, rating=2.75

I actually started this before Shanghai Girls but once I got a hold of Shanghai Girls I wanted to read that first then I ended up putting it on hold again to quickly read The Greatest Miracle in the World. Several days then passed before I resumed it again and my days got busy and I ended up reading this choppily. I kept referring back to which mother-daughter belong with whom as the author went back and forth from each characters. I recall the beginning being engaging but the middle got confusing. I got back on track towards the end but by that time I was just pushing myself to finish! It wasn't poorly written. The book just had the bad luck of me reading this too choppily and with my characteristic of being forgetful. Basically, the book accounts the lives of 4 sets of mother-daughter characters. Set in modern time America, the daughters are now adults with family stories of their own. The mothers tells of their backgrounds with their own mothers and struggles they faced to raise their daughters the best they could. The daughters told their version of growing up with their mother's Chinese influence. Through all of this the readers get a feel for Chinese ways vs American ways and told with much wit. Although the daughters have been Americanized, they're more Chinese than they realize.