The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

I’m feeling lazy so my review may not be the best, but let me tell you, this book is.

Tan takes her time introducing us to the characters and their back stories, spending the first half of the novel setting up for the second half. But you don’t really notice! Yes, the pacing is slower, but it’s still very interesting, and I think for the most part readers remain unaware of the greater adventure they’re in for.

Then the second half hits, and it’s this tidal wave of action and emotion, rushing you along, dragging you under, pulling you to someplace you never dreamed of. What’s real, what’s imagination? What’s fate, what’s choice? What’s love, and what’s faith?

I love books that make me ask questions like that. I love books that can make me cry. This book certainly did both.

I think my single complaint is that as a half-Chinese, half-American myself (like Olivia and Simon in this book), I found that Tan mostly skims the surface of the identity crisis and cultural clashing we experience. But in fairness, that wasn’t really the point of the book. And obviously I enjoyed it anyway.

So yeah, super glad I read this. As a writer, I also find her pacing (mentioned earlier) a great feat, and something for me to consider with my current project.

A few of my favorite lines/parts:

It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don’t want. (p 8)

Sure, I loved him — too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I’m number one in his life. I’m not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore. (p 27)

Yes, yes, I’m sure it was 1864. I remember now, because the year sounded very strange. Libby-ah, just listen to it: Yi-ba-liu-si. Miss Banner said it was like saying: Lose home, slide into death. And I said, No, it means: Take hope, the dead remain. Chinese words are good and bad this way, so many meanings, depending on what you hold in your heart. (p 32)

When I was with him, I felt as if a secret and better part of myself had finally been unleashed. (p 75)

Being able to restrain my emotions isn’t a great victory — it’s the pitiful proof of lost love. (p 170)

I thought that her love was another one of her American luxuries, something Chinese people could not afford. (p 201)

Are we born with blank hearts, waiting to be imprinted with any imitation of love? (p 236)

I’m glad she’s not drowning in grief, because I wouldn’t know how to save her. (p 237)

“Don’t think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then your mind becomes confused.” (p 241)

… the world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, endless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true. I once thought love was supposed to be nothing but bliss. I now know it is also worry and grief, hope and trust. And believing in ghosts — that’s believing that love never dies. If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses. (p 399)