Starred Review Tan's Joy Luck Club (1989) was a spectacular debut and a hard act to follow, but this second novel is magnificent. It's a natural offspring of the first book, delving deeper into mother-daughter relationships, the vagaries of luck, and the will to survive. The catalyst for the tale is a longtime friend's demand that Winnie finally reveal the whole truth about her life in China to her grown, American-born daughter, Pearl. She unveils her painful past in a great torrent of words, unburdening herself of old angers and fears, re-creating her violent, war-wrenched youth and the brutal tyranny of her first marriage. Abandoned by her mother, who fled the oppressive, hopeless life of a second wife, Winnie was raised indifferently by relatives who married her off to a savage man. As Tan traces the many twists and turns of Winnie's saga, she dramatizes the inhumanity of arranged marriages and the subjugation of women. Myriad details of everyday life conjure up the chaos in China during the 1940s as the ancient feudal order crumbled and the Japanese attacked. As events unfold, it becomes clear that the often unspoken yet unshakable loyalty and devotion of women friends sustained Winnie, made her triumphant liberation possible, and now has brought her closer to her daughter. A ravishing, vivid, graceful, and unforgettable tale of womanhood, endurance, and love, lit by gentle humor and the healing aspect of truth.

Worthy of all the acclaim of The Joy Luck Club, Tan's engrossing second novel continues the author's intricate exploration of mother-daughter relationships in Chinese-American culture, the generational differences, and the key way secrets define them. Pearl, herself the mother of two girls, has not yet told her mother Winnie what she has known for a whilethat she has multiple sclerosis (their relationship has been strained ever since her father died when she was 14). Aunt Helen, who knows Pearl's ``secret,'' threatens to tell Pearl's mother if Pearl won't do it herself. Helen then makes the same threat to Winniereveal her secret past to her daughter or Helen will. So Winnie sits down and tells Pearl the story of her life before coming to America and before her marriage to the man Pearl thinks is her fathera life of hell spent with a deeply disturbed, sadistic first husband, Pearl's real father. It is a life that encapsulates a strong belief in fate and luck and, unfortunately, the oppressed role of women in Chinese cultureone that continually summons up the image of the title: a symbol of the wronged but ever-forgiving wife. In the sheer power of conveying Winnie's secret life in China, Tan once again demonstrates her truly gifted storytelling ability. (Pearl is a less interesting character, but then again so if life in contemporary California.) Once can only admire her talent for capturing and synthesizing the complex cultural dynamics at work here and turning them into such an intriguing, harrowing tale. (Literary Guild Dual Selection for August)"

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