The+Joy+Luck+Club

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan participation wiki

About the author

Amy Tan

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California on February 19, 1952. Throughout her life, Amy and her family struggled with trying to hold on to Chinese culture while at the same time embracing American culture. When Amy was a teenager she lost both her father and brother to brain tumors. Tan got her degree in English at San Jose State, and did graduate work at Berkeley. //The Joy Luck Club// was published in 1989, her first novel. A lot of what makes this book so enjoyable is of the connection she has with it in her own life. She is still writing today.

Summary

The Joy Luck Club is a club that was formed by main character June's mom, who immigrated to San Francisco California while fleeing war-torn China. There are only four members, who meet weekly to play mahjong. When June's mother dies, June is asked to take her place along with the other three women, her mother's friends. //The Joy Luck Club// tells the story of these three women, their daughters, and June, who all know each other very well. The daughters and their mothers often have conflicts--the daughters have grown up their whole lives in America, while their mothers cling to the traditions of Chinese culture that they hold so dear. And June, whose mother is now gone, uncovers her mother's mysterious past throughout the story, and learns much more about her mother than she ever bothered to learn when she was alive. media type="youtube" key="2n8zaq4bahU" height="385" width="480"This is a clip from the beginning of the movie //The Joy Luck Club.//(based off this book)

Criticism ★★★★★(5/5) I absolutely loved this book. It was so well written and really made me think. However, there were some really sad parts in this book and also some very angering unjustices in this book. It was easy to become attached to the characters, and a lot of my opinions of the characters changed throughout the book as I learned more about them and their experiences. I would recommend this book to everyone. The only challenge I found with this book is that there are lots of characters to keep track of- 3 pairs of mothers/daughters and one forth daughter named June, whose mom we never meet (although I still became attached to her later on in the story...), not including all the other characters in each of their individual lives. The book is written in a different format than most books. There are sixteen different stories told by seven different people (each mother/daughter tells 2 stories, while June tells four.) Some of the stories are really funny and light-hearted, while others are serious and thought-provoking. Amy Tan wrote an amazing novel and I would recommend it to everyone!

Literary Info

Fiction. 288 pages

Literary Analysis

Throughout the book, the daughters and their mothers seem to be in constant disagreement. From the daughters' point of view, it seems like the mothers are too harsh on them. However, as the book goes on and you learn about the mothers' pasts, you can understand a lot more about their hope for their daughters and why they are the way they are. All of the mothers have experienced hardships in their life, and it is very frustrating to read about them being treated unfairly. Throughout the story the mothers are sort of afraid of becoming too immersed in American culture and forget their Chinese heritage, while their daughters have lived in California their whole life. These are two completely different perspectives, which makes it hard for them to see eye to eye. It is easy to develop strong opinions about certain characters.

Lots of characters develop and change throughout the book and as the reader learns more about the characters, the characters also learn more about themselves. The main character, June, experiences a lot of changes. As a character, June has always been very competitive with another character, Waverly. Waverly has always been very successful even as a child, and as an adult is an attorney. June has never been able to quite match Waverly's talents--although she has tried (her efforts including an abysmal fail of a piano recital.) However, as the story progresses June tries to stop being so competitive with Waverly. More importantly, she begins to learn more about her mother after her mother dies, because of notes her mother left her and the stories her mother's three best friends tell her. Before her mother's death, June knew very little about her mother's past. But June learns more and more about her mother as the story goes on which leads her to have a very different perspective. A very sad truth is revealed in the book: often we don't realize things about others until they are already gone.

SOURCES [] []