The Joy Luck Club

“You see the lives of these women, and you think about all the women who came before you. . . . It’s among the canon of Asian American stories that are feminist and that are true to our being.”—Margaret Cho

“Brilliant . . . Powerful as myth.”—The Washington Post Book World

“In the hands of Amy Tan, who has a wonderful eye for what is telling, a fine ear for dialogue, a deep empathy for her subject matter and a guilelessly straightforward way of writing, [the themes and characters] sing with a rare fidelity and beauty. She has written a jewel of a book.”—The New York Times

“What it is to be American, and a woman, mother, daughter, lover, wife, sister, and friend—these are the troubling, loving alliances and affiliations that Tan molds into the sixteen intricate interlocking stories that constitute this remarkable first novel.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Amazing . . . The Joy Luck Club is dazzling because of the worlds it gives us. . . . The only negative thing I could ever say about this book is that I’ll never again be able to read it for the first time.”—Los Angeles Times

“Tracing the poignant destinies of two generations of tough, intelligent women, each gorgeously written page welcomes the reader and leads to an enlightenment that, like all true wisdom, sometimes brings pleasure and sometimes sadness. . . . To tell this complex story, Amy Tan, a writer of dazzling talent, has created an intricate tapestry of a book—one tale woven into the other, a panorama of distinctive voices that call out to each other over time.”—Chicago Tribune

“Honest, moving, and beautifully courageous. Amy Tan shows us China, Chinese-American women and their families, and the mystery of the mother-daughter bond in ways that we have not experienced before.”—Alice Walker

“Impressive . . . Describes the morass of fierce love and misunderstanding which lies between the two generations.”—The New Yorker

“There aren’t many books you finish and immediately want to re-read, but this is one of them. The Joy Luck Club is like a Chinese puzzle box—intricate, mysterious, and connected in a way that only seems simple. . . . Almost mythic in structure, like the hypnotic tales of the legendary Scheherazade, this fiction is also concrete. . . . There are many more stories, each detail more haunting and unforgettable than the one before, each reflecting on someone else’s story.”—Cosmopolitan

“Subtle and delicate . . . An intimate glimpse into a way of life and a culture seldom explored by Western literature . . . The stories read well individually, but together, with characters and circumstances so skillfully interwoven, the whole truly becomes greater than the sum of its parts.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“The Joy Luck Club will delight readers of any generation or background with its carefully wrought stories of the physical and literal oceans, geographical, cultural, generational, that both divide and unite us.”—The Pittsburgh Press

“Powerful and accomplished . . . Rich in the bittersweet ambiguities of real life.”—Newsday