This book is about four Chinese mothers, born in the first decades of the 20th century, and their four daughters who were born in America shortly after World War II. The book opens with Jing-Mei Woo - who is now in her thirties - being invited by her father to join the 'Joy Luck Club' shortly after the death of her mother. This is a group of eight Chinese people which meets to play mah-jong, to raise money, and to gossip. Jing-Mei doesn't really want to join with these older people - her father, and three sets of honourary aunts and uncles, but does so for the sake of her mother's memory. After eating a meal, playing a game, and remembering some incidents ...  Read the complete review

At the moment, I have a passion for reading novels set in cultures different from my own. They provide me with such a different experience and perspective to think from that I find them addictive. This is why I picked up ?The Joy Luck Club? by Amy Tan for £1.00 in a charity shop (where else?). I was unaware that she wasn?t just a one-off author and has in fact written other novels, amongst them ?The Bone-setter?s Daughter.? This book, ?The Joy Luck Club? published in 1989 won The National Book Aware and L.A Times Book Award, also in 1989. The book begins by introducing us to Jing-Mei Woo and the Joy Luck Club. This is a club where a group of old friends go ...  Read the complete review

This is the third book I've read by Amy Tan and was looking forward to it, having enjoyed the previous two, which were "The Bonesetters Daughter" and "The Kitchen God Wife." All three books have a had a similar theme in that there is conflict between a Chinese mother and their Chinese-American daughter. However unlike the previous books I read, rather than focus on one mother and one daughter, this book focuses upon four women and their daughters. The book is set in modern day San Fransisco, and the first character we are introduced to is Jing-Mei Woo, who has been invited to join the Joy Luck Club after the death of her mother. The group ...  Read the complete review

Amy Tan was born in California but her parents were Chinese immigrants. She started writing short stories in 1985 and drew on her Chinese background and the experiences her family had been through in China. The Joy Luck Club is a set of sixteen tales about four Chinese mothers and their Chinese - American daughters. Their stories interlock to give the book continuity. One or two stories were published in magazines but the complete volume quickly became a best seller when it was published in 1989. This book is often called a 'novel' but much of it is based on fact and actual incidents. The contrasting worlds of modern America and old China are ...  Read the complete review

Love, war, broken and forced marriages bound four Chinese women who decided to have a new life in the USA. Seems like all is well when you get your American dream, but the past knows no boundaries, cultural or geographical. And so the sad stories of four missfortunate women reveal at a mahjong game at a mourning of one of them. Suyuan Woo, at who's mourning the story beggins, had to leave her twin daughters by the road during a Japanese invasion in China. The whole in her heart couldn't be filled with the birth of her "american" daughter Jing-mei so Suyuan allways tried to fill it with high expectations for Jing-mei, telling her she could be anything she ...  Read the complete review