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Book Review of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
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This book deals with the entire issue of women's lives, and all it entails, without ever descending into vulgarity or apology. Lily & Snow Flower's lives are filled with pain from the age of seven, when their feet are bound, until their deaths, and yet somehow I did not find the book depressing. They are married off to strangers, have children, lose children, and at one point lose each other. They grow up in a system that does not value love, either from parents or husbands. Lily is honest about not knowing how to show love to Snow Flower in her hour of need; she has no cultural experience in it and honestly does not know what to do.

I especially enjoyed the author's comments at the end, and how she found in real life some of the world she had written into the book.