The Joy Luck Club
- 318
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
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About the book
The Joy Luck Club is a 1989 novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco who start a mahjong club known as The Joy Luck Club. The book is structured similarly to a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters share stories about their lives in the form of short vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the themes within that section. The novel has been widely discussed for its portrayal of Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters, especially around bilingual, bicultural, and intergenerational identity conflicts.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.6 across 525 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 78% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Classics average of 7.7. That is how 7.6 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.9 | 45 | 9% |
| Hardcover | 7.5 | 480 | 91% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“For the most part I really enjoyed “The Joy Luck Club” and found it to be a quick read; the novel is broken into 16 chapters, two chapters for each of the eight characters (four mothers who are Chinese immigrants, four daughters who were born…”
“Liked: I loved the stories concerning the mothers. The immigrant experience and how that experience will shape how you raise your children. Disliked: The stories of the mothers vs. the daughters did not intertwine as well as I hoped. The daughters all married or dated…”
Frequently asked
How long is The Joy Luck Club?
It has 318 pages — longer than 68% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 7.6 and 7.9, closest to this book.
