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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
By: Lisa See
2006
288 pages

Rating 5

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is one of the best books I've read all year, probably even for a long time. I love how right from the beginning I was pulled into the book and it felt as if I was there watching all that was happening. Lisa See did such an amazing job of giving visualizations though words. See wrote in a first person narrative style which in this case was probably the best way the book could have been written. The detail that See used when writing was impeccable. All events described are described with such specify that it's impossible not to visualize all that is happening.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan tells the storey of two women, Lily and Snow Flower, as they go through their lives in the mid 1800s in rural China. Readers "witness" the foot binding of the girls, their marriages, their daily lives, and their secret language that is used only with women.

There is a mix of joyous and tragic events that occur in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. And the feelings that I felt for each of the characters as they went through all the good and the terrible things felt real. There were several times when I was so lost in the book that things around me were not just faded away, but had disappeared.

I not only recommend this book to women, but also to men. It provides a perspective on life that is important for men and women alike to acknowledge and learn about.