Join Books.org — it's free

Fiction, Fiction Subjects, Peoples & Cultures - Fiction
The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan — book cover

The Kitchen God's Wife

by Amy Tan
Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Log in to track your reading progress.

Overview

Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than fifty years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose everything. And Winnie angrily determines that she must be the one to tell her daughter, Pearl, about the past—including the terible truth even Helen does not know. And so begins Winnie's story of her life on a small island outside Shanghai in the 1920s, and other places in China during World War II, and traces the happy and desperate events tha led to Winnie's coming to America in 1949.

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.

Synopsis

Cliffs Test Preparation Guides help students prepare for and improve their performance on standardized tests ACT Preparation Guide CBEST Preparation Guide CLAST Preparation Guide ELM Review GMAT Preparation Guide GRE Preparation Guide LSAT Preparation Guide MAT Preparation Guide MATH Review for Standardized Tests MSAT Preparation Guide Memory Power for Exams Police Officer Examination Preparation Guide Police Sergeant Examination Preparation Guide Police Management Examinations Preparation Guide Postal Examinations Preparation Guide Praxis I: PPST Preparation Guide Praxis II: NTE Core Battery Preparation Guide SAT Preparation Guide SAT II Writing Preparation Guide TASP Preparation Guide TOEFL Preparation Guide with 2 cassettes Advanced Practice for the TOEFL with 2 cassettes Verbal Review for Standardized Tests Writing Proficiency Examinations You Can Pass the GED Cliffs Quick Reviews help students in introductory college courses or Advanced Placement classes Algebra I Algebra II Anatomy & Physiology Basic Math and Pre-Algebra Biology Calculus Chemistry Differential Equations Economics Geometry Linear Algebra Microbiology Physics Statistics Trigonometry Cliffs Advanced Placement Preparation Guides help high school students taking Advanced Placement courses to earn college credit AP Biology AP Calculus AB AP Chemistry AP English Language & Composition AP English Literature & Composition AP United States History Cliffs Complete Study Editions are comprehensive study guides with complete text, running commentary and glossary Chaucer's Prologue Chaucer's Wife of Bath Hamlet Julius Caesar King Henry IV, Part I King Lear Macbeth The Merchant of Venice Othello Romeo and Juliet The Tempest Twelfth Night See inside back cover for listing of Cliffs Notes titles Registered trademarks include: GRE, MSAT, the Praxis Series, and TOEFL (Educational Testing Service): AP, Advanced Placement Program, and SAT (College Entrance Examination Board); GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Council); and LSAT (Law School Admission Council.) The Kitchen God's Wife

Publishers Weekly

Tan's ( The Joy Luck Club ) mesmerizing second novel, again a story that a Chinese emigre mother tells her daughter, received a PW boxed review, spent 18 weeks on PW 's hardcover bestseller list and was a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection in cloth. (June)

About the Author, Amy Tan

With her acclaimed 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club and its successors, Amy Tan succeeded in revealing the Chinese-American sensibility to readers in unprecedented numbers. In mystical, winding prose, she draws the boundaries and commonalities between generations of women who are related, but born worlds apart.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Tan's The Joy Luck Club mesmerizing second novel, again a story that a Chinese emigre mother tells her daughter, received a PW boxed review, spent 18 weeks on PW 's hardcover bestseller list and was a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection in cloth. June

Library Journal

The Joy Luck Club LJ 2/1/89, Tan's remarkable and successful first novel, is followed by this chronicle of Chinese-American life, which shows Tan's growth as a writer. Pearl, the American-born daughter of immigrants, begins the tale with an uneasy visit to her mother for Grand Auntie Du's funeral. Misunderstanding runs deep between mother and daughter: Pearl is married with two young girls of her own, but her mother's life is largely incomprehensible to her. This leads to the large second part of the novel, told in mother Winnie's voice of her young womanhood in World War II-era China. Tan is a gifted natural storyteller. The rhythms of Winnie's story are spellbinding and true, without the contrivance common in many modern novels. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/90; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections; first serial to McCall's .-- Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.

School Library Journal

YA-- Fans of Tan's Joy Luck Club Putnam, 1989 will love her powerful second novel. Here she creates an absorbing story about the lives of a Chinese mother and her adult American-born daughter. Pressured to reveal to the young woman her secret past in war-torn China in the 1940s, Winnie weaves an unbelievable account of a childhood of loneliness and abandonment and a young adulthood marred by a nightmarish arranged marriage. Winnie survives her many ordeals because of the friendship and strength of her female friends, the love of her second husband, and her own steadfast courage and endurance. At the conclusion, her secrets are uncovered and she shares a trust/love relationship with her daughter, Pearl, that was missing from both their lives. Some YAs may find the beginning a bit slow, but this beautifully written, heartrending, sometimes violent story with strong characterzation will captivate their interest to the very last page. --Nancy Bard, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA

Book Details

Published
September 1, 2006
Publisher
Penguin Group (USA)
Pages
416
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780143038108

More by Amy Tan

Similar books