JenKazoo's review

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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1103.Snow_Flower_and_the_Secret_Fan_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1157830997m/1103.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1103.Snow_Flower_and_the_Secret_Fan_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/713.Lisa_See">Lisa See</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/16046347?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>I read this book when I got on an World Lit/International kick that began with The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This book really opened my eyes and gave me a yearning to read fiction about other cultures, especially asian cultures. I became a bit obsessed with the foot binding tradition, mostly because I just cannot fathom how anyone could out themselves through such pain as a form of beauty. Americans go through pain during plastic surgery which is, in a sense, similar....but with a couple of bottles of pain pills to relieve the pain. These women had nothing and were forced to endure pain that some people will never get close to. It is disgusting, heart wrenching, and fascinating all at one. I had to stop and google some images to satisfy my curiosity. It made me not want to walk on my perfectly health feet...I guess I know now how it feels when a man sees another man get kicked in the balls. You just really empathize at once. The craziest thing to me is that, depsite the fact that this is illegal, some women are still secretly doing this, either to uphold an old world tradition, or (from what I can glean despite my Westernized perspective)just become a sort of novelty for men. I suppose it is no different to the women today who are having these strange vaginal rejuvenation surgeries that are discussed on Dr. 90210. <shudder> I feel a feminsnist-perspective critical essay coming on. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/931557?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>