"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan"

Author: Lisa See
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing, 2005
Pages: 272
My Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Lily is haunted by memories–of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness. In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu ("women’s writing"). Some girls were paired with laotongs, "old sames," in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become "old sames" at the tender age of seven.

Review: This book piqued my interest because I know next to nothing about Chinese culture and about as much Chinese history that could be squeezed into one college history course taught by a less-than-inspiring professor. I've heard about foot binding, arranged marriages, and other traditions and practices, but this book delves right into these subjects and it's just so fascinating - painful - but fascinating.

See does a fantastic job of describing and explaining, in the context of a plot and storyline, enough about Chinese culture so that even if readers know nothing about it they don't feel as though they're on the outside looking in. I also realized that while some of the traditions seem so foreign and even, strange to me, the reasoning behind it and the expected outcome, kind of make sense. This isn't to say that I agree with the means to the end, but on some level I can appreciate where they're going with it. This book is the reason I try to choose books outside of my comfort zone. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.