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The Kitchen God's Wife | 
 enlarge | Author: Amy Tan
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $2.45
You Save: $11.55 (82%)
New (54) Used (30) Collectible (8) from $0.49
Rating:  163 reviews
Sales Rank: 138403
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0143038109
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780143038108
ASIN: 0143038109
Publication Date: September 21, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
With the same narrative skills and evocative powers that made her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, a national bestseller, Tan now tells the story of Winnie Louie, an aging Chinese woman unfolding a life's worth of secrets to her suspicious, Americanized daughter.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 158 more reviews...
Great Service! October 15, 2008
The book was in the condition it said it was in and it was a great price! The delivery was super fast and even arrived before the date anticipated.
 A Story of a Woman's Relationship With Her Daughter October 1, 2008
This brilliantly written novel by Amy Tan tells the story of a mother's life in China during WWII and, later, her relationship with her daughter, Pearl. The author's use of voice brings the story to life remarkably well. Amy Tan develops her characters with intense detail, and I could almost feel their thoughts and emotions exuding from the page while the story unfolded. The beautiful understanding that grows between the mother and Pearl throughout the novel intermingles with a very vivid image of what life looked like during the war. This made it interesting and fun to read.
For most of the book, the mother narrates the story of her own life to her daughter, where we see her struggling to be a good wife in a horrible marriage, all while living in a war-shaken China. Because both mother and daughter have lived lives full of secrecy up to this point, the mother's openness helps Pearl to see her mom and the way she behaves in an entirely new light. The change in the relationship between mother and daughter evokes deep thought, but I don't believe a book will be very interesting if it consists only of a compacted form of gushing emotions. A certain amount of factual support is needed. For this reason, I felt the addition of Chinese history and culture found in the novel give it a necessary spice.
Amy Tan's excellent writing makes her book something really special. A touching story and interesting facts run together charmingly, creating a novel that transcends all time. Although many of the events in the book now seem historical, the theme of a reuniting family is generally very dependable; this was definitely the case for Amy Tan. This story, with its lovable characters and their hardships, is easy for people to relate to now, and will continue to mean a lot to readers in the future. I would say that the novels was, by all means, a huge success.
 Worth reading, but Tan has written better July 24, 2008
The Kitchen God's Wife reminded me of The Bonesetter's Daughter in that it was much about mothers, daughters, secrets, and life in China before immigrating to America.
The book tells the story of Winnie, a young girl who survives a harrowing childhood and then a disastrous marriage in war-torn China. Winnie eventually immigrates to America and then keeps her life in China a secret from her daughter, Pearl. The course of the novel follows Winnie as she tells her daughter all of her secrets and the two become closer.
While I enjoyed The Kitchen God's Wife, and I think it is worth reading, it was difficult to absorb at times. For one, Winnie's first marriage, to an abusive coward named Wen Fu, was frustrating at times. I understand that a woman's place in 1940s China was very limited, but I couldn't help feeling that Winnie was so worried about shame and being impolite that she wouldn't do what was necessary to save herself and her children. In many ways, I felt that she allowed herself to be taken advantage of, and it was difficult to read about that.
Secondly, I wouldn't recommend reading this novel in close proximity to The Bonesetter's Daughter. The two stories are too similar. Of the two, I think I liked The Bonesetter's Daughter better, because I felt the female characters were a bit stronger.
Riveting, inspiring and educational March 12, 2008
My wife and I will often read a novel to each other if it has plenty of drama, and tells a great story. The Kitchen God's Wife is such a story! The novel starts off slow but interesting, and as the end nears it becomes harder and harder to put down.
Most of the narrative is anchored around Winnie Louie's revelation of her secret and tumultuous family history to her daughter, Pearl Louis Brandt. Pearl has a secret too - she has MS and doesn't want to tell her mother. The two open up after prodding from Helen, who becomes concerned about taking secrets to the grave after being diagnosed with a benign brain tumor. But, the biggest secret of all isn't revealed until the very end of the book... and I don't want to spoil the ending.
Winnie describes a childhood of rejection - first by her mother and father and then aunts and uncles. After that she endures a brutal marriage to a man named Wen Fu, and eventually escapes to a new life in the USA. Through it all Winnie's spirit and determination survive intact. Also woven into the story are insights into Chinese culture and history, so the novel is at once educational, inspiring, and riveting.
Savory! March 1, 2008
Tan's second book is The Kitchen God's Wife. Like the Joy Luck Club, the storyline revolves around issues of mother-daughter relationships, family obligations, immigrant life, and a dark and meaningful secret's power to shaped lives. Tan says that this book was an attempt to write her mother's "true story," although in a fictionalized way. Apparently in the Joy Luck Club, she was only testing the waters. Now we are onto some really powerful stuff.
As cousin Bao-Bao's wedding draws near, Winnie realizes she must let the family skeletons out of the closet for Pearl's benefit, before family friend Helen does it for her. Not only does Winnie and Helen's shared past contain powerful information that is most appropriately given from mother to daughter, Winnie fears the ways in which Helen has remembered the events differently.
Winnie is tired of the old secrets and lies that have become reality. No longer worried that she will be deported and sent back to a horrible fate in the homeland, Winnie tells Pearl her story. As Amy Tan said during the Shanghai Literary Festival, "things that have the power to destroy also have the power to heal." As the secrets unfold, this tale becomes a highly engaging, intricate web of beautifully written stories within a story.
I tried to read it as slowly as possible so I could savor every nuance of this wonderful book!
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