The hundred secret senses by Amy Tan

 

TW: minor spoilers ahead


I have been looking forward to read something by Amy Tan and so when I came across this tattered copy of The Hundred Secret Senses in a thriftstore, I bought it without any second thoughts.


I am unsure about what exactly did not work out for me. Maybe I was expecting the story to take a different trajectory. This book's weakest point was the character development. I waited and waited to know more about Kwan as a character and how the relationship between the sisters evolved over the years but sadly that never happened.


The book had a lot of potential. I have not read many books exploring the relationship between two half sisters (or not? No more spoilers here). But it remained largely unexplored and the few conversations that they had, were always centred around Kwan and her peculiar abilities to interact with dead people because she believed she had "yin" eyes. A number of chapters were dedicated to a certain Mrs. Banter, her friend who had died, and I found her story extremely irrelevant and skipped those chapters entirely. One more story about those dead ancestors and I would have flung the book out of the window, I swear.


Another aspect of the book that irked me was how Kwan was constantly meddling with her sister Olivia's marriage and personal life. She came up with ridiculous ideas about how the three of them-- Kwan, Olivia and her husband Simon should go to China together so that they can work on their marriage and what's more, Olivia actually welcomed it. 


If you are thinking that there must be something redeeming about this book, I must confess that there isn't any. At least for me. The author actually ended the book with the message that Kwan's only purpose in life was to reunite Olivia and Simon. I am just regretting my decision of not DNFing this.

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