Book Review- Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses

I'm a huge fan of Amy Tan and I have read all, but her most recent novel. Tan's third novel, The Hundred Secret Senses, follows two sisters as they try to overcome culture gaps to form a bond. 

The narrator is Olivia, a photographer who sets up the story through flashbacks to her childhood. On Olivia's father's death bed, he tells his family that he has fathered a child who is living in a remote village in China and he wishes for his daughter to be brought to America. When Olivia is six, her adult half-sister, Kwan, is brought to live with her family in San Francisco.

Kwan is a bit quirky. She claims to be able to see and communicate with the dead. She is eager to please her new American family, especially Olivia, who finds her customs and invasive nature to be off putting. Most of Kwan's visions of the dead are dismissed as crazy, until Kwan's stories begin to captivate Olivia. Kwan, a very capable storyteller, draws Olivia into her world and she begins to give into the tales of ghosts and past lives.

The Hundred Secret Senses failed to grab my attention. It's a messy story. Half of the novel is comprised of Kwan's ghost stories and the other half is Olivia's rocky relationship with her husband Simon. The story is muddled and between the two story lines, it takes a painfully long time to play out and intersect. Approximately 95% of the novel is leading up to a reveal that just doesn't merit the time invested in the build. 

What's strange is that the story feels more like it should have been broken down into a series of short stories. The tone doesn't match between the various sections and it's jarring. I really didn't care about Kwan's ghost stories. They bogged down the pacing and it took me weeks to finish the book due to a lack of interest. 

 The section involving the trip to China began to renew my interest in the novel. I enjoyed Olivia and Simon's adventure in a foreign culture. However, it wasn't too long before Kwan's stories came back into play and I struggled through the last twenty pages. Kwan is an interesting character, but only when she is rooted in the real world and not in her fantasy life. 

I love Tan's writing style and her stories are usually captivating, but this isn't the best example of her talents.  

Book Review- One Fifth Avenue

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Candace Bushnell is one of those authors that I always feel compelled to read, even if her books never quite satisfy. Scratch that, her books are usually terrible. However, I keep buying them, so here we go...

I picked up Bushnell's, One Fifth Avenue, on the Barnes and Noble bargain table several years ago and it has sat on my to-be-read shelf, until last week. I've been in a reading slump and needed a beach read to get me back on track. 

Bushnell's rise to fame is due to the popularity of the television version of, Sex and the City. The television show was fantastic, unfortunately, the book version was not. I think she lucked out when someone saw potential in her characters and could make them better.

The problem central to all of Bushnell's books are that none of the characters are ever remotely likable or relatable. They all come across as callous, self involved and snobby. It's impossible to even like the characters that you know are supposed to like. All of her characters put up walls and she doesn't allow enough venerability to let the reader inside. It's a problem.

That being said, One Fifth Avenue was the most fun of all of her books. The book follows the lives and scandals of the residents of an exclusive building in Manhattan. It's often very salacious and reminded me a bit of a Jacqueline Suzanne novel.  It didn't immediately grab me, but after the first quarter of the book, I was along for the ride. 

Bushnell has a lot to say about our cultural obsession with money and the aspiration to obtain a certain status, even at the expense of personal wellness and relationships. All of the characters in the story are in their own struggle with deciding what value to place on social status and material wealthy. Every character to some degree obsesses over their image and stature. On that level, the book sets a tone of desperation, because nothing ever seems quite enough.

Bushnell isn't a great author and this isn't a great book. However, it was good enough for a beach read and for a bargain table price, I feel that it was money well spent.

Book Review- Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

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I'll admit it, I can be swayed by quote recommendations from authors that I admire. I picked up Maggie O'Farrell's novel, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, because the jacket had quotes from Audrey Niffenegger and Carolyn Parkhurst, two authors that I love.

O'Farrell's novel centers around Iris, a vintage shop owner, who receives a call from a mental institution regarding her great-aunt Esme. The institution is closing down and Esme, a patient for over sixty years, is about to be put in a home. Iris never knew that her aunt existed and her only living relative that can shed light on the situation is her grandmother, Esme's sister, who is in a home with advanced Alzheimer's. Iris, against the advice of those around her, decides to take her aunt into her own home and tries to piece together the family secrets.

I enjoyed this book enough to forgive its frustrating narrative. The story is told through different perspectives, both through first person memories and third person. The story shifts between narration styles and characters making it occasionally confusing and it brought me out of the world of the story.

Anytime I have to pause and regroup while reading, I feel like it's a fail on the part of the author. The number one golden rule is to never have the reader pulled out of the world of the story. This happened several times. There was even a part when Iris spoke about information regarding her aunt that she could not have known, as the the information was previously revealed as part of Esme's memory, not something that she told Iris. 

If O'Farrell had written a less entertaining novel, I would have had a difficult time overlooking these inconstancies. The story was throughly compelling and kept me staying up late to finish it the same day that I started reading it. It's rare that a book keeps me entertained enough skip sleep!

 I felt like the mystery of Esme and the family secrets were revealed with great care to pacing and keeping in tact the element of surprise. It made the novel a real page turner. 

O'Farrell's novel has a interesting theme of power, those who have it and those who lack it. In many ways this is feminist literature wrapped in a mystery. On a surface level, this book doesn't appear to be too deep or meaningful, but it actually has many layers and would make a good pick for a class or book group. As I was reading it, I felt uneasy and a bit angry on behalf of some of the characters in the book. It got to me.

The ending was entirely unsatisfactory. It felt like it ended prematurely and was rushed. I felt cheated. I had stayed the course of the book and needed more. 

I feel mixed about this book. Ultimately, I would recommend it, but I feel like O'Farrell is a solid writer and that this might not be her best effort.