Lady Tan's Circle of Women

This was a book that had intrigued me for a while. It’s the exact type of book I’m trying to read more of: books with Chinese influence that don’t focus on the male perspective. I held off on it because I was worried it wouldn’t be too serious but it really blew me away. This book is part medicinal textbook, part tale of a friendship between two women, part history lesson on Chinese women in the Ming dynasty and part a commentary on how class and gender interact. This is a book that covers a lot of ground and yet I don’t feel like it’s trying to do too much, which is the sign of strong writing.

Part of that is definitely the characters. Yunxian is a very compelling protagonist and she is able to make her supporting characters really come to life. While it is clear that every character is there to serve an explicit purpose, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. As I said before, this is a novel with a very wide scope and to accommodate said scope one needs a lot of characters. I think every character here is quite well-realized, allowing the rest of the book to flow smoothly.

I’m guessing that most of this book’s praise will come from the research and I’d like to add to that as well. See did an absolutely remarkable job at bringing this period to life and I appreciate that she didn’t just focus on the upper class. Most aspects of Ming Dynasty China life are explored here, which makes it all the more remarkable that this book feels less like a history textbook and more like a well-paced novel. This book could have been incredibly boring but See writes it in a way that it almost doesn’t feel educational. This sounds like an insult but it’s actually a huge compliment.

Overall I’m super impressed by this book and I look forward to reading more of See in the future.