Wonderfully moving story of mothers and daughters and how the way we learn to relate with our mothers can impact every other relationship we form in life. The characters grow and learn and change over the course of the story in a most satisfying way, although the author does come perilously close to an unrealistically Happily Ever After ending. Alright, maybe she did it, but I enjoyed the journey so much that I didn’t mind it. I zoomed through this book in less than two days because I stayed up waaaaaay too late last night to finish it.

Hardcover version, has been on my bookshelf for so long I don’t even remember when or where I got it. Really 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 because I don’t do half-stars.

I read this for The 16 Tasks of the Festive Season, for Square 11, December 21st-22nd: Book themes for Dōngzhì Festival: Read a book set in China or written by a Chinese author / an author of Chinese origin; or read a book that has a pink or white cover. This book is both set partly in China and the author is the daughter of Chinese immigrants to the US.
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La anciana LuLing comienza a escribir todo lo que recuerda de su infancia y juventud en China. Una vida azarosa de leyendas, fantasmas, maldiciones y amores. Su hija Ruth, una escritora de libros de encargo sumida en problemas existenciales, empieza a sospechar que su madre está muy enferma. Entonces descubre los escritos de LuLing, y se abre ante ella un pasado rico y revelador. Las páginas caligrafiadas de la anciana encierran una verdad íntima que nunca fue capaz de contar a su hija, pero que al mismo tiempo desea que esta no olvide. En el transcurso de un año, madre e hija reconcilian sus historias y conjuran el pesar de sus sueños rotos.

A good sweeping epic story. ( )

This book tells the story of three generations of women - a Chinese immigrant with an American daughter, and a birth mother who is the bonesetter's daughter of the title. Most of the book is the immigrant LuLing's story, written as a memoir that her daughter Ruth has translated. It covers her life (mostly in a village near where the Peking Man was found) in China, just before, during, and after World War II. This part was sad but fascinating. The book is more about family relationships (especially mother-daughter) than anything else. ( )

Usually when I read Amy Tan's books I find myself wishing that the whole thing was told from the mothers' point of view, or even just set in the past entirely. Tan mentions in an interview included in the back of this edition that she knows her strength is writing from the perspectives of mothers (372). This book, though, was a delight from cover to cover. I loved Ruth every bit as much as I loved LuLing young and old.

The background characters in this book were excellently done, carefully nuanced rather than playing simple roles. GaoLing, Art, and Art's two children in particular struck home for me: I recognized the reality of their rough edges but also their smoother sides, both of which fit together in surprising ways. It struck me as very true to life, trite as that might sound. And, okay, I liked that both Ruth and Art, and LuLing all had happy endings. I am, occasionally, a bit of a sap. And also a bit weary of ambiguous or downright depressing endings. It's nice to occasionally have fiction that touches the worst of people but also leaves you with a feeling of hope for humanity.

I'm trying to keep reviews short so they don't eat up my life, but I do feel like I need to say something about the formulaic title, since I gave a little rant about it in my review for [b:The Calligrapher's Daughter|6400109|The Calligrapher's Daughter|Eugenia Kim|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312048331s/6400109.jpg|6588819]. While I thought the title was particularly inappropriate in that case, I'm not quite as bothered by it here. Obviously (to those who know me) I read this looking for a bit more about the bonesetter side of things/history, but I didn't feel cheated by the title because I was so satisfied with the story. I think because, thematically, "bonesetter" applies to so much of the book, I'm able to accept it. First there's the actual bonesetter's daughter, who sets the entire plot in motion. Then there's LuLing, whose life seems full of bones--literal (Peking Man) and figurative (skeletons in the closet)--that she's trying to reassemble. And finally we have Ruth, who investigates her mother's life, past and present, the way geologists excavated Peking Man, fitting the pieces into a picture of her mother's life that also changes how she looks at her own.

My one complaint (because I always have one, don't I?) is probably entirely the publisher's fault. The back of the book says that "headstrong LuLing rejects the marriage proposal of the coffinmaker," which is patently false. LuLing was going to go ahead with the marriage quite happily--it was who rejected the proposal. Did no one let Tan fact check this before it went to print? Why wasn't it corrected for the paperback edition? (Or was it? I picked this book up at Ollie's, so goodness knows how or why it found its way there...)

This concludes my little 3-book streak through East Asia--I was actually planning to continue, just for the heck of it, but I received an ARC today that I actually want to read. Will review the second book next.

Quote Roundup

270) At the end of the party, he would lie on the cushioned bench, close his eyes, and sigh, grateful for the food, Rachmaninoff, his son, his daughter-in-law, his dear old friends. "This is the truest meaning of happiness," he would tell us.
Sounds like bliss.

351) "Her death was like that ravine. Whatever we didn't want, whatever scared us, that's where we put the blame."

352) As she often did in bookstores, she headed to the remainder table, the bargains marked down to three ninety-eight with the lime-green stickers that were the literary equivalent of toe tags on corpses.
I like the image, but I must object to the idea. Some of my favorite books have come from the markdown section, this one included. Markdown is a chance to entice a reader who might otherwise have passed the book by. Strand is an excellent example of this--I've picked up several books that I wouldn't have paid full price for because I wasn't entirely sure I would love it. Sometimes I did love it, and more often I didn't really, but I still tried something that I wouldn't have, otherwise. Now, if we imagine that those toe tags Tan describes are like the one on the front cover of [b:Stiff|32145|Stiff The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers|Mary Roach|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347656489s/32145.jpg|1188203], then we might be in business. As Mary Roach explains, death is only the beginning! ( )