The Valley of Amazement | Amy Tan

Title: The Valley of Amazement
Author: Amy Tan


I read several unfavorable reviews of The Valley of Amazement. However, I am pleased to say that I completely disagree with them. This book has love, loss, tragedy, humor, birth, death, pandemic, and much more. For the most part, it follows the life of Violet, a biracial young woman who, through an act of deceit, ends up becoming a courtesan. 

The historical context is what I found particularly fascinating. This is largely because I read it during another global pandemic. The book vividly (and accurately) discusses the Spanish flu and its aftermath. The parallels to today's COVID-19 pandemic were striking.

In short, I found the book to be engaging and interesting to read. The main characters--sometimes victims of others, sometimes victims of their own bad decisions--were likable and sympathetic. 

I, without hesitation, give this book five out of five stars.

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QUOTES:

"To save myself, I destroyed another, and in doing so, I destroyed myself."

"Suffer more now, suffer less later."

"The life we receive is not always what we choose."

"Fate changes when you change your clothes."

"Our love would be solace, companionship, and the mending of wounds."

"Teddy once told me that it's natural that we feel alone, and that's because our hearts are different from others and we don't even know how. When we're in love, as if by magic, our different hearts come together perfectly toward the same desire. Eventually, the differences return, and then comes heartache and mending, and, in between, much loneliness and fear. If love remains despite the pain of those differences, it must be guarded as rare."

"Accept love when it is offered, Violet. Return love and not suspicion. Then you'll receive more."

"Maybe the kind of love that would comfort me didn't not exist. Perhaps I expected too much of love and no one existed who could ever meet my unceasing and bottomless need for it."

"A moment is not the same as time."

"Even when I worked in that world, I still wanted love so strong that the man would have no interest in another woman. Maybe you will always be incapable of giving that kind of love. You tell me I want too much. And maybe I do. But like you and your imagination, I can't help but be that way."

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READING PROGRESS:

A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller: 41%
The Regulators by Richard Bachman: 10%
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice: 3%
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling: NOW STARTING


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