It is very apparent that Tan did a huge amount of research before writing this novel. Her writing is very fluid and strong, so why than did I only rate this book a three? When I first started reading this I was enthralled, reading about the lives of the concubine, the houses that provided pleasure but also a place were business was discussed and deals were made. Found it fascinating that the madame of the place was a white woman, who had a young daughter. Fast forward and politics rears its ugly...

If you want HUNDREDS of pages of minutia on being a Chinese courtesan (read: high dollar prostitute) in the early 20th century...then Amy Tan's new novel, "The Valley of Amazement" is for you.If you like ROMANCE novels...then this may be the book for you; I don't know what you call a "Bodice Ripper" for a culture that doesn't wear bodices...a "Robe Ripper" maybe?If you liked the how-to dating book called "The Rules"...then you might enjoy the section on how to be a courtesan. (Spoiler alert for

There is so much to like about this novel but ultimately it is let down by too many unlikely character motivations. The characters that Amy Tan draws for us - strong, savvy and resilient women - would simply NOT turn into nitwits overnight and make the poor decisions she depicts.If a child of yours was kidnapped, would you ever put another child of yours at risk? And if you later discovered the whereabouts of your child, would you move heaven and earth to find that child, or would you just say,

Amy Tan’s derivative new novel covers the familiar themes she has recycled from her previous novels about mother-daughter relationships. Spanning 50 years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the saga takes place largely in the courtesan houses of Shanghai, when vast changes were occurring during the early establishment of the Republic of China. Told in the first person by a daughter from each generation, (but mostly from one named Violet), the reader is taken on an epic journey of love, i...

3.7 stars --- I enjoyed the storytelling --but it felt like a story I've read many times. When its clear the story is going to be predictable (yet enjoyable also: as I DID enjoy reading Amy Tan again), it just doesn't take 600 pages to tell the story. 350 pages would have been about enough. Yet... Amy Tan is an eloquent writer. It was easy to imagine the courtesans, their fashions, and their behaviors in public with their suitors. [The dramatic -the rich -the refined 'little darlings' creating i...

1.5 "sociocultural, soft porn and soap opera" stars !! 2015 Most Disappointing Read (tie) I want to start off by saying I read two books by Amy Tan in my twenties that I liked very much. These were the Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife. They were interesting and about complicated relationships but written in an accessible and intelligent way.This current book took eight years to write and I want to say it was just an awful reading experience. Eight years to write this tortuous book.The bo...

Don’t call them prostitutes.That’s the first rule of the Shanghai courtesans in Amy Tan’s exhausting new novel, “The Valley of Amazement.” Just because these women provide sex in exchange for money, they’re not prostitutes, so don’t even think that.Deception and misperception are the stock in trade of the sex business — and of this story, too, which stretches over four generations and thousands of miles. The valley of “The Valley of Amazement” is very deep, indeed, an arduous journey of fraud, k...

I was thrilled when I realized Amy Tan's newest protagonist is biracial: Anglo-American and Chinese. Tan has always handled the bicultural narrative brilliantly, but the biracial narrative is far more complex and certainly more broadly significant to the current readership. She handles the subject with great insight and also courageously, because this novel, after all, takes place mostly during the the early 1900s, when biracial children were regarded with such deep aversion both in China and in...

I am always astounded by reviewers who compare, always unfavorably, the book they have to some book that they feel should have been written. Many of the reader reviews I read here fall into that category. Taken on its own, The Valley of Amazement is a marvelous, nutritious and fulfilling novel, a ripping good yarn. It has, of course, the elegantly simple and lucid prose that Ms. Tan is noted for, as well as the touches of magic and the unique characters she always seems to find. But it also has

The Story behind the Story Amy Tan's inspiration for The Valley of Amazement originated at a visit to The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where she stumbled upon an academic book with a BW photo of courtesans - "a class of women who were influential in introducing Western popular culture to Shanghai" (read between those words). The 1910 photo was captioned: "The Ten Beauties of Shanghai." She was stunned - these women were wearing clothing specific to the trade, identical to those in her favo...

It took the better part of 200 pages before this storyline started to gain a stake in my interest, and even then it was more of a gentle tug than a grabber. Still and yet, the writing is lovely; we are used to this with Amy Tan. Grief is defined as when ‘your eyes still see but have stopped looking’. Harbingers of bad luck masquerade as a sudden breath of wind, a tear in a garment of clothing, or a laughing bird. The impossibility of hanging a painting in a room of round walls is pondered. There...

Okay, no thank you Ms. Tan. I really don't want to know the intimate clinical details of what it was to be a prostitute in turn-of-the-century Shanghai. I don't want characters whose nearest and dearest are CONSTANTLY dying or disappearing. Tragedy upon tragedy equals yawn, in the end. You could see what was going to happen at the village the second someone said 'oh let's go to my village.' I was looking for a multi-generational/cultural saga; I got fifty different words for private parts. Off t...

Amy Tan is an amazing storyteller, and THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT exemplifies her skills. This is a multi generational story between mothers and daughters, as well as many other wonderful and important characters. The attention to detail and historical research that must have gone into the writing of this novel is mind-boggling. If you loved MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, you will be fascinated by the details and lives of Tan's courtesans. I have read some criticisms of this book in other reviews, that it wa...

I actually really liked the book and I want to echo another reader's sentiment that this would make for a really good show or mini series. I can see why others might not have enjoyed it. The book is quite long and at times detailed in a way that might be tedious, though personally I found that aspect enjoyable because it really allowed me to lose myself in the book. It also focuses mostly on Violet and then towards the end it suddenly feels like we get all this information at once about Lucia, w...

It is a testament to Tan's writing that I finished this book. I do not like spending so much time with characters I do not like or respect. Violet Minturn, the daughter of a famed American courtesan mistress in Shanghi, is someone I didn't enjoy. A spoiled brat would be a good description. Violet is half American, half Chinese, a fact that she doesn't discover until she's 8 or 9. She creeps around the house spying on all the courtesans at work. Nothing her mother does is good enough and Violet n...

I read Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses years ago and loved it; I quite enjoyed The Bonesetter's Daughter as well. I'm one of the few people on the planet who didn't much like The Joy Luck Club, but it was Tan's first novel and my reaction had more to do with the way she chose to tell the story than her talent as a writer. Also, I love historical fiction and reading about China. All of which is to say, I had high expectations for this book.Unfortunately, it tanked. The book begins with some moder...

THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENTAmy TanAmy Tan has long held the title of the queen of the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, at least those of Chinese descent. THE VALLEY OF AMAZEMENT is the story of three generations of women all torn away from each other. The novel takes place at the turn of the 19th century traveling from Shanghai to a remote village in China to San Francisco.Violet is a virgin courtesan in one of the most reputable houses in Shanghai where the length and graphic de...

Relentless misfortune gets a little tiresome to read about after a while; so too with this book, wherein almost everything tragic that could possibly befall a young girl in early 20th century Shanghai most certainly does. I don't want to add to any unfair expectation that an Amy Tan novel must have an equal amount of storytelling divided amongst members of each generation, but at some point I would have liked to stop hearing about all of Violet's woes & get more juice about her mother Lucia. As

Spoilers.. sort of. I'm still slogging through this book.. about 100 pages left. I don't know if I can make it. Too many sex techniques, like way, way, way too many. (And I'm fond of sex information) Way too long.and it covers almost the same .location, same abusive husband/men, same mountain village and same mystical mountain pass. I'm so disappointed. I can walk that damn mountain pass in my sleep. In general, I love Tan's books.. but nothing new was brought to The Valley of Amazement.