Book Reviews
Remarkable…mesmerizing…compelling.… An entire world unfolds in Tolstoyan tide of event and detail.… Give yourself over to the world Ms. Tan creates for you.
New York Times Book Review
A beautiful book.… [W]hat fascinates in The Kitchen God's Wife is not only the insistent storytelling but the details of Chinese life and tradition; not only how people lived but how their sensibility shines through, most notably in their speech. Amy Tan has a command with language in which event and concrete perception jump into palpable metaphor, and images from the daily world act like spiritual agents.
Los Angeles Times
Tan's mesmerizing second novel, again a story that a Chinese emigre mother tells her daughter, received a PW boxed review, spent 18 weeks on PW 's hardcover bestseller list and was a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection in cloth.
Publishers Weekly
[TKGW] shows Tan's growth as a writer.… Tan is a gifted natural storyteller. The rhythms of Winnie's story are spellbinding and true, without the contrivance common in many modern novels. Highly recommended. —Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.
Library Journal
[P]owerful…absorbing…. 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
School Library Journal