39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The story of a woman's life in China, July 13, 2002
THE KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE, Amy Tan's second novel, is another story that deals with family history and relationships between mothers and daughters. Unlike her first novel, THE JOY LUCK CLUB, THE KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE takes place mostly in the past.
Pearl and her mother Winnie have never had a very good relationship. Winnie criticizes Pearl often, and makes it unpleasant for Pearl whenever they come to visit. The book opens with Pearl, her non-Asian husband Phil, and their two young children making the drive to San Francisco to attend a family wedding.
Everyone in the family is there at the wedding, including close family friends and relatives that have been a part of Winnie's life since her days back in China in the early `20's and `30's. An argument breaks out between Pearl and Winnie at the wedding, but before Pearl and her family return home, she and her mother talk. The story that Pearl hears from her mother is a story she has never heard before. It is a secret that Winnie has kept from her daughter for decades, for fear of hurting Pearl. Pearl herself has a secret, but it becomes secondary as Winnie's story unfolds.
Winnie's modern day world was a lifetime away from her early beginnings in China. She was born to a woman that was one of many wives belonging to a man Winnie knew as her father. He was a stranger to her, never giving her the time of day. Winnie's mother was beautiful and educated, and together they lived the life of the pampered rich because of her mother's station in life. Winnie's life turns for the worse when her mother disappears for reasons unknown to the young girl. Winnie finds herself losing the protective life she had with her mother, the home she grew up in, and placed in the home of a distant relative, to be treated like a second class citizen. Her life is never the same again.
Because of her new station in life, Winnie is destined to never marry, but through a fluke of fate, she ends up marrying a man that should have been destined for her cousin Peanut. However, after they are married, Winnie finds out that this husband is not the romantic wonderful man he appeared to be during the beginning of their courtship. From this point in her life, she knows only unhappiness and suffering.
Winnie has to endure much during this marriage, including abuse, countless miscarriages and loss of children to sickness and poverty, and with the outbreak of war in China, she does not know what her future will be like. What finally brings her to America and to the husband that Pearl knows as her father, is for the reader to find out.
I highly recommend THE KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE. Although this book is not as fast a read as THE JOY LUCK CLUB, I found that the history of Winnie was fascinating, taking me to a country that I know so little about. The story of Pearl becomes second to Winnie's, but Winnie's story bridges the two stories together, as the reader finds by the end of the book.
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Kitchen God's Wife-a must read, December 22, 1998
By A Customer
The Kitchen God's Wife starts out differently than you would have expected. The start and the end share a bond being told by the daughter but the middle, that is where the true story comes in. A tale of a mother whose life was as good as she made it out to be. Winnie always thought less of herself and higher of others. She was brought up to believe that she was always wrong and that her evil husband was always right and if she disagreed that she deserved to punished. An amazing story filled with chinese culture that does not sound like a history lesson, this book keeps the readers attention and is wonderfully written. You become part of the story as you read it and therefore, seem to be living Winnie's life along with her. Along with all of the hardships and all of the joys. If you have a heart you will be drawn into this book. I had to read this book for an assignment but it turned out that i actually enjoyed this novel and other works by Amy Tan. A book for those who have lost all hope, but somehow still find enough to keep going and remain strong throughout their entire lives. Enjoy!
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Poor communication is the greatest tragedy, August 13, 2001
I enjoyed reading Tan's "The Kitchen God's Wife." Although I am not too familiar with Chinese or even Chinese American culture, I was struck by the universal theme of how heartache wears people down, causing them to shield their feelings and strain even their most precious relationships rather than risk being emotionally open and connected to one another. The story revolves around a Chinese mother and her American born daughter, and the way they've retreated from this relationship to numb the suffering each has experienced...which is definitely the wrong antidote. The book unfolds the life story of Winnie, the mother, who grew up in China in the early 1900's and left for the United States sometime shortly after World War II. I don't like to think the harsh treatment she endured, especially as a child, could be true, although cruelty has never been limited to one time or place. At times it seemed the plot got a little convoluted or perhaps repetitious, but Tan is a skilled storyteller and manages to follow through to a credible ending. Her book makes me curious to know more about Chinese culture--to this end, I enjoyed the historical references and observations of customs as seen through the eyes of her various characters.
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