Book Review: Lisa See’s ‘Peony in Love’
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Usually I only read one book at a time, but in the past week I have started reading three fiction books. Upon the arrival of my new Latte MP3 player I have started reading Emma by Jane Austen using the player’s book reading feature. I have also started listening to Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger that I downloaded with my free trial at eMusic’s Audiobooks. I’ve also begun a new evening book - Knit Two by Kate Jacobs, the follow up read to The Friday Night Knitting Club - which means that I have finished another and so I have a review for you …
I fell in love with Lisa See’s writing after reading her fifth novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which was released in 2005. Loving both her style and the historical fiction genre, I snagged her next novel, 2007’s Peony in Love. The latter was a story with a unique twist: Much like Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, the main character passes away near the beginning of the book and spend most of the story as a ghost. In addition to learning all about 17th century Chinese beliefs about women, literature, and marriage, the reader also gets a first-hand look at the beliefs and rites surrounding death and the afterlife.
While if you are only going to read one of these two See’s novel I certainly recommend Snow Flower over Peony, both of these books are extremely entertaining and historically educational.
In addition to these two novels, See has written four before and one since these, all of which are on my “to read” list:
On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family (1995)
Flower Net (1997)
The Interior (1999)
Dragon Bones (2003)
Shanghai Girls (2009)

Another book-to-film creation hits theaters next month. On June 26, leaving you just enough time to read the novel before watching the movie, the big screen version of Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper releases under the same name. 


Writing a fiction book blog has made me realize how few classics I have actually read (and remember) cover to cover. I prefer easy-to-read fiction, especially since I do most of my reading in bed before falling asleep.





Novel Title: Banana Rose
The movie version of Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted was a major hit in 1999 for Angelina Jolie and Kaysen herself. Kaysen originally published her memoir of time spent in a teenage girls’ psychiatric hospital. Both the book and the movie give interesting perspectives into 1960s mental health, and both weave heart wrenching tales, but the two are very different from one another. And if you enjoyed the movie but never read the book, I highly suggest you consider reading the original story behind the blockbuster.