Review of Amy Tan's "The Hundred Secret Senses"

When I first starting reading The Hundred Secret Senses, I assumed that I would be reading a story about a woman's relationship with her half-sister. While the main plot of the book is the relationship between the half-sisters, another large portion of the book was about the main character's relationship with her husband. Until the very end of the story, I considered these two relationships to be almost completely separate, and would therefore like to begin by discussing both of them separately.

I absolutely loved reading about the main character Olivia, her relationship with her half-sister Kwan, and Kwan's stories.

Amy Tan's description of Olivia (in first person narrative) is so authentic that I initially mistook it for an autobiography. Olivia fearlessly shows the reader both her strengths and dreams as well as her less applaudible characteristics and describes several of her shameful actions. For example, right from the beginning of the book, Olivia is revealed to be far from perfect, practically rejecting Kwan despite Kwan's unwavering devotion and love for Olivia. If you're looking for a model heroine, do not read this book; however, if you are looking for a realistically flawed character who feels like a real person, then look no further than Olivia.

Personally, I found the relationship between Olivia and Kwan to be very relatable. As a person who contains both dauntless love and reoccurring frustration for my sibling, I felt like I could understand both Olivia's detachment and Kwan's over-attachment. In the very beginning of the book, Olivia explains how her relationship with her mother and how it affected her relationship with her sister. This background makes her disdain for Kwan understandable, if not saddening. On the other side of the relationship, Kwan's loyalty to Olivia is innocently sweet in a child-like manner. Kwan adores and stays attached to Olivia, even when Olivia hurts Kwan and ignores her in obvious ways. Although at some times it was painful to read about such a contrast in feelings, it felt real and created a hope for resolution between the sisters.

Dispersed throughout the novel was Kwan's stories of her supposed past life. Whether or not her past life actually happened or was a mere figment of imagination, it was undoubtedly fascinating. Kwan's story takes the reader back to 19th century China, a setting of great change and turmoil. Her story is engaging through it's incorporation of pure narrative, description, and personal insight. Besides just iterating what happened in her past life, Kwan describes the people and places in her story in such a way that the reader can truly visualize the events. Kwan also adds in her thoughts about whether or not she should have done something, how it would effect her future, and why certain things mattered to her. In effect, Kwan's story was like a novel within a novel.

As for the ending, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, the ending of the novel ties together all the ideas and concepts in an easily understood way, and resolves most of the conflicts. There is a very clear, and I thought appropriate, resolution to the difficult relationship between Olivia and Kwan. However, I felt that the resolution to the difficult relationship between Olivia and her husband Simon was less satisfactory.

This brings me to my one and only complaint about the book--the marital relationship. As a high school student, I found it extremely difficult to relate to descriptions of marriage and it's difficulties; I can only imagine how difficult it would be for another person my age who has never been in a relationship to relate to Olivia's marriage problems. Because of this lack of connection, every time Olivia talked about Simon, I found myself frustrated and waiting for the novel to turn back to Kwan or China or anything else but Simon. Speaking of him, I really disliked Simon. Based on Olivia's descriptions of him, I thought he was immature, arrogant, and overall a poor choice on Olivia's behalf. By the end of the book, I was fed up with Simon.

Keeping all of this in mind, I would give The Hundred Secret Senses a strong four-out-of-five-stars rating. I thought that the characters were both diverse and interesting, the plot to be exciting and unpredictable, and the sibling relationship to be both engaging and incredibly relatable. Based on my complaint about the strong presence of marriage related issues, I would recommend this book primarily to an older age group-college age and older. However, I felt that I got a lot out of this book despite the one complaint, and would therefore recommend it to any high school students willing to overlook this.