Search - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Someone in one of my book clubs chose this book to read. I read the little blurb for it and wasn't looking forward to reading it. It just didn't sound that interesting to me. Boy, was I dead wrong. Just wrong.

This was one of the better books I've read lately. I was horrified, fascinated, happy, sad and terrified all at the same time. I didn't know much about this era of China before reading this book and I was intrigued by many things in here, I even had to spend some time at Wikipedia looking stuff up.

The core of the story is about a friendship, but for me it went way beyond that, yes there was the footbinding (literally reading this made my own feet ache with horror), but there's also the marriage practices, the "place" the women have in their home, nu shu, etc etc...

Read it. It was really very good - a surprisingly good read for me this year!

I am not a fan of "mushy" books. I do, however, love when a good book makes me cry! I therefore began reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan with cautious, yet hopeful, anticipation. From the first page, I realized that Lisa See had no intention of defaulting to the typical emotional cliches on which so many other authors seem to rely. In other words, trying too hard. Instead, she created honest, realistic, and utterly flawed characters whose relationship evokes emotion on a personal and very natural level. These characters cause you to reflect on your own relationships, and wonder "am I a Snow Flower or a Lily?"

I gave the book 4 of 5 stars because I thought the foreshadowing was a little too heavy handed. I kept asking myself, when will this "misunderstanding" take place already? Otherwise, an excellent read!

This book deals with the entire issue of women's lives, and all it entails, without ever descending into vulgarity or apology. Lily & Snow Flower's lives are filled with pain from the age of seven, when their feet are bound, until their deaths, and yet somehow I did not find the book depressing. They are married off to strangers, have children, lose children, and at one point lose each other. They grow up in a system that does not value love, either from parents or husbands. Lily is honest about not knowing how to show love to Snow Flower in her hour of need; she has no cultural experience in it and honestly does not know what to do.

I especially enjoyed the author's comments at the end, and how she found in real life some of the world she had written into the book.

I was very surprised at the book..I had never read a book about China or the practice of binding girls feet...It was upseting to me but I worked through it and otherwise I really enjoyed the book.

I started reading this book because the foot binding chapter started on page 17 and I was fascinated to find out how this was done. I found that the entire book was fascinating in a sense because it gave me such an education about the lives of Chinese women up until the beginning of the 20th century. It was very hard to read though it was only 253 pages long. The women of China were treated so badly and had so little hope or happiness in their lives. I know a lot about history and I know this book was very well researched. So, even though I wanted to keep going on, I had to stop sometimes and get away from the book and distract my mind. And it wasn't only the men who continued the abuse and subjugation of the women; it was the women themselves. Overall, a very bad, bad time and place to be a woman. At the end, I grieved for them all as I grieved for Snow Flower and the terrible burdens she shouldered throughout her pitiful life. This is an excellent book and I think, should be read by every woman. However, it will bring tears and sadness and great relief that we do not have to live like that anymore.

Fantastic. Beautifully written story of friendship and love.