What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Tsukiyama

My continual visits to my older brother's bedroom seem to have accomplished one thing: He invited me to go to the library with him last week. Okay, he was going anyway, but he had mentioned that he was running out of books he thought I would enjoy. So we went to the library.

The main problem was that I am returning to college tomorrow evening, so I had to find a book that would last me until I left, but no longer. I wanted a change of pace, and I wanted a book that involved Chinese or Japanese culture, because I'm interested in learning more about it for the story I am worldbuilding for. I've tried some online research, but it wasn't giving me a good idea of the culture, so lacking a friend who is Chinese or Japanese (I have a Filipino friend, but that isn't close enough, and I have a Russian friend, but same thing goes for there), I thought fiction books involving the culture could be enlightening.

With only those parameters, I checked out a copy of Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama, who has a Japanese father and a Chinese mother. The book did not go far into the religion side of the culture like I wanted, but it did portray the culture of factory life for females in China in the early 20th century. I'm not one to reject new information, even if it's unasked for, so I took what I could get out of the story.

The book took me about two days to read (leaving me with three days without a book to read. Thankfully, I was able to borrow my younger brother's library book, Flatland, so you'll be hearing about that later). Sadly, I don't think it's a book I would recommend to anyone. The writing was bland and uninteresting without being downright bad. It just wasn't anything special or great. As for the story itself, most of it was actually cliche. I was not drawn into the story, and even though several important characters died, I didn't even think about being sad about it. Okay, I thought about sadness for the last one, but I wasn't remotely sad, myself. I had high hopes for this book, but it just was not anything special. It was, in a word, ordinary. The only thing that set it apart were the details incidental to the era, region, and culture, but I'm not well-versed in Chinese literature (I've read some Du Fu and Li Bai, plus some haiku poets, but that's about it). For all I know, it's ordinary for its genre and background.

It is a feminist novel, which I'm sure would have been incredibly gutsy had Tsukiyama written it while living in China (but she was born in San Francisco and lives in California).

Tsukiyama is supposed to be a bestselling author, and I have no idea why. Maybe her other books pull in the reader more.