The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Very difficult start: infuriating superstition and ignorance, then tragic consequences thereof. Thanks to reviews and encouragement from friends, I kept reading, and am glad I did.

The story is sweet and well told. Almost entirely first-person narration, very effective: a strong voice with quite satisfying growth over time. Rich and fascinating cultural details. Rather more about tea than I'd ever imagined wanting to know—I am firmly Team Coffee—but to my surprise I ended up appreciating those parts. Appreciating the book and its characters quite a lot.

The infrequent (and mercifully brief) shifts into epistolary or dialog narration were awkward, even cringey at times. But, okay, we need exposition, and I appreciate keeping the book under four hundred pages. What disappointed me most was that the story arc was too pat. Too many convenient coincidences. They added to the overall tender tone, but made it feel fluffier. Maybe if you go into it with that expectation you'll be more forgiving than I.

Oh, be sure to read the author's Acknowledgments at the end. Impressive.

I made it to 43% but will drop this now nevertheless. There's lots of interesting stuff in here, the traditions and beliefs of the Akha minority, the tea business in China, but the plot feels soapy and melodramatic. There's something that irks me about the book wanting to tell the story of a girl growing out of her misogynistic superstitious culture, while at the same time telling her story filled with symbolism (like her giving birth under the mother tree).

I was disappointed in this book. There were entirely too many coincidences that didn't ring true (and yes, I know in the beginning there was a passage that said “no coincidence, no story” but that's a cop-out. Maybe one coincidence, even two, but this book is filled with them. Parts of the plot don't hang together (never once in the courtship and marriage did the POV character figure out who her husband's father was - he never mentioned ever having been to her village when he'd been there many times as a child?). Most of the parts with Haley rang false and even a bit pedantic/preachy”, as though trying to convince us of a point of view instead of the reader getting to draw their own conclusions about the issues involved in adopting children from other countries. And it seems that the wealth came too easily - I mean both the main characters magically met the love of their lives and voila, both men were fabulously wealthy. Not realistic. Too much telling of emotions instead of letting us feel them along with the characters. I did think the ending was right. And I gave it three stars because Lisa See had obviously done much research and the background on the history of the tea trees, etc. was interesting. I actually thought her secondary characters had more depth and challenges and I felt they came across as more real than either of the two “leads”