The Hundred Secret Senses [Import] [Hardcover]

Amy Tan (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd; First Edition edition (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0261672762
• ISBN-13: 978-0261672765
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (231 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,775,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, and two children's books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, which has now been adapted as a PBS production. Tan was also a co-producer and co-screenwriter of the film version of The Joy Luck Club, and her essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her work has been translated into thirty-five languages. She lives with her husband in San Francisco and New York.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book that I can't stop recommending, May 15, 2005

By 

Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hundred Secret Senses (Mass Market Paperback)

I put off other things on my weekend to finish this book because I was so involved in it, and I've been recommending it to other readers since finishing it. This book was more beautiful to me than The Joy Luck Club, but it took me a little longer to get into the book and realize how amazing it was.

The plot is summarized well on Amazon. While reading, I had a little trouble getting into Kwan's Miss Banner previous-lifetime stories. I, like Olivia, thought Kwan was a kooky dreamer. Of course, her stories have a deeper meaning, and I urge you to stick with them so see Tan's beautiful resolution of the relationship between Olivia and Kwan.

In the beginning of the book, I thought Olivia knew herself the best, and that Kwan was just an overly-emotional meddler. As the book progressed, Tan convined me of the depth of Kawn's character, and my feelings about everyone in the novel changed. Tan is a masterful storyteller for taking me in this journey of discovery.

This history of China is well-treated in this novel, and I wanted to learn more about the Taiping Rebellion when I finished. Don't be put off if you don't like historical fiction, though, because I'm not usually a fan, but I found myself entirely wrapped up in this.

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sisters ~ Past and Present, April 10, 2001

By 

Kelly Budd (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hundred Secret Senses (Paperback)

The Hundred Secret Senses starts off very simply, the story of sisters reuniting from extremely different cultures. The sisters are Olivia and Kwan, born of the same father, neither knew each other until Kwan arrives in America as the last dying wish of their father. So the tale begins...

The reader will journey with Kwan through many past lives and her communications to 'yin people'. The yin people are those that have died and communicate to her ~ ghosts. The ever reserved and practical Olivia, finds Kwan's behaviour and beliefs odd and unbelievable.

The Hundred Secret Senses follows the lives of Olivia and Kwan as they create and define their relationship. It is the story of coming to terms with ones self, as well as accepting those around you for who they are. The reader will participate in the great struggle that Olivia has with this challenge.

The reader will be challenged to question their own beliefs of the yin people or the afterlife. I only recently discovered Amy Tan and The Hundred Secret Senses is equally as brilliant as The Bonesetters Daughter. I would recommend this novel!

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A higher level of writing, February 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hundred Secret Senses (Mass Market Paperback)

I am very fond of JOY LUCK CLUB. I have to think of it as a first class display of wonderful writing. And I really enjoyed KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE which is an excellent example of telling a story. However with THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES, Amy Tan is aiming at a higher target and is taking a more honest look at herself, at people, at life and at the spiritual nature of humankind than previously. That she sometimes struggles to achieve her aims (and for sure this book is not as smoothly written as JOY LUCK CLUB) and that there are a few areas that could be strengthened, does not give me enough reason to lower my rating of this novel -- for she does what few writers ever do and reaches out for the truth of existence. She has gone from an excellent writer to a special writer, and in doing so enters into a very select group of American writers. In reading THE HUNDERED SECRET SENSES, I wondered if Amy Tan had read any of Philip K Dick's later novels, for I know of no other American author that was so willing to honestly grapple with existential material with such aggressiveness and sensitivity. Forty years from now we may look at this novel as a turning point in Amy Tan's career. She has shown now that she has both the technique as well as the vision to be one of the most important novelists of our time. The Hundred Secret Senses rises above the limits of both THE BAY AREA culture and AMERICAN culture into the realm of serious observation and representation.