a quick read, i personally think this book had a lifespan that may be just about over (or already passed?). cross-cultural adaptation and inter-generational relationships are always dynamic and when they're well written, involving. overall, a good book to examine relationships from multiple sides and just how complex women can be in communicating! i read it because it had been recommended to me so many times by so many people, but i dont think i'll be recommending it to people the same way.

Mothers and daughters tell their stories in the chapters of this book. Each chapter is a different story, some sweet, some sad, some beautiful, but all lovingly interwoven to show two generations of women as they go through life.

The ``joy luck club'' is a mah jong/storytelling support group formed by four Chinese women in San Francisco in 1949. Years later, when member Suyuan Woo dies, her daughter June (Jing-mei) is asked to take her place at the mah jong table. With chapters alternating between the mothers and the daughters of the group, we hear stories of the old times and the new; as parents struggle to adjust to America, their American children must struggle with the confusion of having immigrant parents. Reminiscent of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior in its vivid depiction of Chinese-American women, this novel is full of complicated, human characters.

I have often re-read just the first page of this novel, because one of my favorite lines from any literature is, "she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow."

7/06

Yet another heartfelt book by Amy Tan. Really appeals to mothers and daughters, I thought.

in the best sense. My heard ached, and I felt as though I lived every word. Amazingly heartfelt and true.

The relationship between the mother and daughter in this story is heartbreaking. Misunderstandings, prejudice and bad communication plague them even though they love each other.
This seemed to me to be the most important and interesting theme in the story, and I didn't really understand the point of all of the other material, especially all of the details of the mother's first love. The daughter's diary is also completely incomprehensible to me.
I feel like the only part that really gripped me was how distant her daughter is and what an asshole her son is.
In a way, I don't have a ton of sympathy for these tragic, long-term miscommunication. If you don't talk, you bring it on yourself.

Allison is a gifted Southern writer.

Incredibly beautiful and sad... very emotional... hard to read but a good one none the less. The relationships (good and bad) created here are very real, and the symbolism of some of them is really creative. I just loved it.

From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

A great autobiographical book by Joan Didion, chronicling the period when her husband died, her daughter was in serious ill health, and how she dealt with it. Very interesting way of looking at death and the grieving process. The saddest part for me was when she was trying to reconstruct his final days and hours.

"Magical thinking" accompanies grief. You can't take it in all at once, so magical thinking lets the unthinkable seep in in tiny increments. Joan Didion dooes a very good job of demonstrating grief. I don't know how she was able to do it, although her daughter did not pass until after the book was written. This book was at the top of a list of "grief reading" I was given & it deserves its place.

The importance of mothers to daughters and visa versa is what gives the relationship so much power to hurt. The general feeling by the end is that if we all just try to understand each other, we can all get along. But for the most part, it was pretty interesting. No matter how you treat your daughter, you're going to cause problems.
For the most part, I didn't really feel like the book related much to me, but parts of it just jumped out as the relationship I have with my mother.