Book No. 26 of 2020
This is one of the best Amy Tan books, imho. Tan shines when she examines the complexity of love, resentment, and vulnerability in mother-daughter relationships, and she is so good at capturing the inner tension of being an immigrant or first-gen American.
Similar Reads
I found this book most similar to Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife, for its China-to-the-Bay-Area narrative with very similar mother-daughter themes (and mildly useless American spouses).
Also felt some similarities to Shawna Yang Ryan’s Green Island, in which characters settling in the Bay Area are haunted by the pain and political strife they’ve escaped.