Friday, March 17, 2017

Book Beginnings/The Friday 56 3/17/2017



Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice and Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader. The idea is to share a sentence or so from the first page and the 56th page of the book you are currently reading!  Also, I will now also include a brief synopsis.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane



A Brief Synopsis:  Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations. Then one day a jeep appears at the village gate—the first automobile any of them have seen—and a stranger arrives.

In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people. In her biggest seller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, See introduced the Yao people to her readers. Here she shares the customs of another Chinese ethnic minority, the Akha, whose world will soon change. Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, translates for the stranger and is among the first to reject the rules that have shaped her existence. When she has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city.

After mother and daughter have gone their separate ways, Li-yan slowly emerges from the security and insularity of her village to encounter modern life while Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl. Despite Haley’s happy home life, she wonders about her origins; and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for generations.

Beginning of the Book:

"No coincidences, no story," my a-ma recites and that seems to settle everything, as it usually does, after First Brother finishes telling us about the dream he had last night.  I don't know how many times my mother has recited this praising aphorism during the ten years I've been on this earth.  I also feel I heard versions of First Brothers dream many times.

Page 56

Naturally A-ba and my brothers are against extra schooling for me.  "What husband wants a wife who thinks she is smarter than he is?" A-ba asks Teacher Zhang while he presents the idea, while A-ma looks at him as though he has plague postules.

I'm still very early into the book, just a little past page 56 I think.  I'm reading an e-arc, so I'm guessing more or less where exactly page 56 is, but I think I'm at least close.  I'm kind of feeling like I am in a reading slump, which is unfortunate since I've been looking forward to this next book by Lisa See for a long time.  Her last book, China Dolls came out in June of 2014 and I actually read it in July since my library got it in soon after.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great read! Happy weekend!

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    1. Sadly, it didn't live up to my expectations. Every book though can't be a winner, even when you love the author's other books. I'm still looking forward to her NEXT book, which will probsbly not be for a couple years.

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