2011 January 03

Book Review: The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

Title: The Hundred Secret Senses
Author: Amy Tan
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: December 28, 2010
Paperback: 368 pages
ISBN: 978-0143119081
Genre: Fiction

From the Publisher:

Set in San Francisco and in a remote village of Southwestern China, Amy Tan’s The Hundred Secret Senses is a tale of American assumptions shaken by Chinese ghosts and broadened with hope. In 1962, five-year-old Olivia meets the half-sister she never knew existed, eighteen-year-old Kwan from China, who sees ghosts with her “yin eyes.” Decades later, Olivia describes her complicated relationship with her sister and her failing marriage, as Kwan reveals her story, sweeping the reader into the splendor and violence of mid-nineteenth century China. With her characteristic wisdom, grace, and humor, Tan conjures up a story of the inheritance of love, its secrets and senses, its illusions and truths.

My Review:

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan is another beautiful example of how gifted a storyteller Amy Tan truly is. I have yet to dislike any book I have read by Tan, and while I do not believe The Hundred Secret Senses to be her best work, it ranks high on my list of Tan books to recommend. The story is told by Olivia, who at a young age lost her father and gained a stepsister from China from a previous marriage. While Kwan embraces her newly found younger sister and shares the Yin stories with her, Olivia does not share the sentiment. The reader is able to glimpse them growing up and then as adults, married with and without faults, and the beautiful ending, which is not to be missed. Tan expertly takes the reader into the lives of Olivia and Kwan, vividly detailing San Francisco and China, making the sisters as well as the Yin people quite real to the reader. The Hundred Secret Senses is filled with emotion, love, hope, despair, and above all, family. I adored the character of Kwan and oscillated between feeling sorry for Olivia and wishing she would stop to consider other people’s feelings more, yet the differences between the two sisters works out brilliantly in this story and I cannot imagine either character being portrayed any differently and having the same wonderful effect on the reader. Tan has crafted a beautiful, memorable, and heart-warming book. I would recommend The Hundred Secret Senses to any reader and to discussion groups.

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, Saving Fish from Drowning, and two children’s books, The Moon Lady and The Chinese Siamese Cat, which has been adapted as Sagwa, a PBS series for children. Tan was also the 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 more than twenty-five languages. Tan, who has a master’s degree in linguistics from San Jose University, has worked as a language specialist to programs serving children with developmental disabilities. She lives with her husband in San Francisco and New York.

I received a complimentary copy of The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan from Penguin/Viking Publicity to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.

Book Review: Little Princes by Conor Grennan

Title: Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal
Author: Conor Grennan
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: January 25, 2011
Hardcover: 304 pages
ISBN: 978-0061930058
Genre: Non-Fiction, History, Memoir

From the Publisher:

One Person Can Make a Difference

In search of adventure, twenty-nine-year-old Conor Grennan traded his day job for a year-long trip around the globe, a journey that began with a three-month stint volunteering at the Little Princes Children’s Home, an orphanage in war-torn Nepal.

Conor was initially reluctant to volunteer, unsure whether he had the proper skill, or enough passion, to get involved in a developing country in the middle of a civil war. But he was soon overcome by the herd of rambunctious, resilient children who would challenge and reward him in a way that he had never imagined. When Conor learned the unthinkable truth about their situation, he was stunned: The children were not orphans at all. Child traffickers were promising families in remote villages to protect their children from the civil war—for a huge fee—by taking them to safety. They would then abandon the children far from home, in the chaos of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

For Conor, what began as a footloose adventure becomes a commitment to reunite the children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. He would risk his life on a journey through the legendary mountains of Nepal, facing the dangers of a bloody civil war and a debilitating injury. Waiting for Conor back in Kathmandu, and hopeful he would make it out before being trapped in by snow, was the woman who would eventually become his wife and share his life’s work.

Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.

My Review:

Not only did I read and enjoy Little Princes by Conor Grennan, but I also re-read it aloud to my family, went online to research the foundation Next Generation Nepal and found another passion, helping the displaced children of Nepal. While I would love to go on and on about the injustices that have been done to the families and the children, and trust me when I say there are too many unaccounted for, I am supposed to review the book Little Princes. Grennan writes about a very sad topic and in what could easily become a very depressing book, Grennan’s humour and the children’s loveable spirits shine through making the story informative, insightful, and stunningly beautiful. In the midst of a civil war, poverty and despair the reader is taken to Godawari where the Nepalese orphanage, Little Princes Children’s Home, is located. Grennan is upfront; he only agreed to volunteer there for three months before touring the world because it sounded less selfish than stating he was taking a year off to tour the world. Little did he know just how much these 18 children would mean to him, how they would work their way into his heart, and how he would be unable to get the injustice of human trafficking out of his mind. Little Princes is an astonishingly brilliant, straightforward, and brutally honest account of what occurred beginning in November of 2004 and how 18 children, volunteers, and events more dreadful than one could imagine, lead to the building of a foundation which is still going to this day (I will include links and hope everyone at least takes a look). I applaud Grennan for his honesty, his detailed and vivid descriptions of life in Godawari, Nepal, and for sharing with the world what has been going on for decades and needs to be stopped. If I could, I would place a copy of Little Princes into the hands of every reader. It is a book not to be missed.

About the Author:

Conor Grennan, author of the memoir Little Princes, spent eight years at the EastWest Institute (EWI), both in Prague and the EU Office in Brussels, where he served as Deputy Director for the Security and Governance Program.

At the East/West Institute, Conor developed and managed a wide variety of projects focusing on issues such as peace and reconciliation in the Balkans, community development in Central Eastern Europe, and harmonizing anti-trafficking policy at the highest levels government in the European Union and the former Yugoslavia.

Conor left EWI in 2004 to travel the world and volunteer in Nepal. He would eventually return to Nepal and found Next Generation Nepal, an organization dedicated to reconnecting trafficked children with their families and combating the root causes of child trafficking in rural villages in Nepal. He was based in the capital of Kathmandu until September 2007 where he was the Executive Director of Next Generation Nepal.

Conor now serves on the Board of Next Generation Nepal, together with his wife, Liz. He is a 2010 graduate of the NYU Stern School of Business, where he was the President of the Student Body. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and son, Finn, and a soon-to-be baby girl.

To learn more about Next Generation Nepal please visit the website.

I received a complimentary ARC copy of Little Princes by Conor Grennan from Shelf Awareness/William Morrow to review. Receiving a copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned novel.