The Joy Luck Club in Words Between Worlds

Dec 29, 2014 Simone rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020, poc-authors, books-i-recommend, books-and-movies, general-fiction

It's been nearly 20 years since I read The Joy Luck Club for the first time. I was in my teen years searching for meaning in my world's duality; being Korean and being American. For the most part, The Joy Luck Club helped me know that I wasn't the only person struggling with identity in a country that has a very big personality. However, I'm much older now. In fact, I'm as old as the adult daughters in this book. And what I found is that I related more to the book in a whole different way.

The st It's been nearly 20 years since I read The Joy Luck Club for the first time. I was in my teen years searching for meaning in my world's duality; being Korean and being American. For the most part, The Joy Luck Club helped me know that I wasn't the only person struggling with identity in a country that has a very big personality. However, I'm much older now. In fact, I'm as old as the adult daughters in this book. And what I found is that I related more to the book in a whole different way.

The story follows four women who back in the 1940s started The Joy Luck Club. It was a way for these four women to get together, share a meal and a story, play mahjong and bring a little joy and luck to their world. Each chapter is a different woman's story and then you get the stories of these women through their adult daughters' eyes.

I loved the theme of mothers and daughters. I loved hearing the stories of these mothers and how they made their own luck sacrificing a lot for their families and themselves. I mean, each story of each mother when they were younger and living in China were so good. Seeing them tell their unique story and how their mothers raised them were truly just a gem in itself. But then seeing the struggle these women went through before coming to America and having their children were so surprising as well.

And then finally seeing how their daughters view them! OMG, it was like daughter-ception. Despite the book written with a lot of Chinese culture, I feel like any person can relate to these stories. They can relate to the perseverance and strength to carry on despite the chips being down. It was really empowering to read and made me think of my own mom and grandmothers constantly.

I do want to bring up that this book is quite dated. The book came out in 1989, so some of the social commentary wouldn't be okay today. And I'm not talking about directly at the Asian American women (there was definitely some of that). There was one specific line where Waverly discriminates against a gay hair stylist because it was the height of the AIDS epidemic. It wasn't even necessary! I just thought it was a little rude to include a stereotype like that, but at the same time I wonder if Amy Tan did this to show you that Waverly's beyond her own race's stereotypes and more "American" than her mother. Who knows, but it was surprising to see.

Probably the only thing I didn't realize is that I was reading eight different stories. While a couple of them had some overlap, each of these women lived a very different life with different decisions to get to where they are. It wasn't hard to keep track of all of them, but I felt like the way this book was formatted almost disconnected the women from each other. I think it was the separation of the stories that made me feel like these are eight separate accounts rather than one cohesive story.

Such a great read and I read this over Mothers' Day Weekend. It was the perfect book for the occasion. ...more

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Feb 28, 2018 Michelle (MichelleBookAddict) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: movie-or-tv-show, favorite, bechdel-test, reprint, book-of-the-month, trigger-warnings, physical-own, foodie, staying-true-to-history

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
5⭐️❤️

“Joy Luck was an idea my mother remembered from the days of her first marriage in Kweilin, before the Japanese came. That’s why I think of Joy Luck as her Kweilin story.”

I loved this book. I don’t often read stories that are character driven plots because not that many authors are capable of captivating me, I even have a very small selection of movies with limited scenery because the characters are so good you don’t need that many props (Stalag 17 being my favori ...more

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Nov 21, 2018 Desiree rated it really liked it

Although this book took me way longer than usual to get through, I ended up really enjoying it. Its portrayals of the relationships between mothers and daughters from both sides was absolutely beautiful, real, and funny at times. It made me think of my own mother, and my future daughter, and what I’ll be passing on. As I was reading, I was already looking forward to re-reading, because I found myself flipping back and forth constantly trying to figure out who was who’s mother/daughter. I can’t w ...more

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