Lynne J. (Doughgirl) reviewed on 3/11/2010 + 138 more book reviews

I've had this popular historical fiction novel on my TBR for years, but haven't picked it up because, frankly, I've always heard that the main topics are the Chinese culture and the foot-binding process. And for better or worse, I'm only mildly interested in Chinese culture. And I already knew about the foot binding process and always found it barbaric. But I needed a book set in Asia for a reading challenge, so I picked this one off my TBR and dusted it off.

But as you can see by the 4* rating, I found this novel to be about much more than I had been previously told. Yes, those were important themes in the story. This book describes the foot binding process in detail, and only reinforced my opinion that it was a barbaric process. But I think I do understand better now why it used to be so important in China.

However, for me the primary themes of this novel were something much more universal - friendship and love. The primary relationship in this book was a lifelong friendship between two women, but I think you could easily extrapolate it to friends and loving relationships of all kinds - and in all cultures. This book had a lot to say about what it really means to be a loving friend - especially when it gets difficult to do.

I'm very glad that I read this novel.

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