(Maxine Hong Kingston, 1975)

I was first introduced to this book in my sophomore year of high school and, although hating it at the time, have found myself to have had a favorable idea of it throughout my more literarily mature adult life. I’ve only recently returned to it as part of my office’s book club and am pleased to realize that the romanticization of it in my head wasn’t without merit. I like it as much as I had convinced myself I had!

Kingston diverges interestingly from the typical Asian-American literary style by using what her mother calls “talk-story,” to speak to ideas of womanhood rather than focusing on the now cliche frustration of fitting into America as an immigrant, as seen in any one of Amy Tan’s boring novels. Talking story creates a hybrid fact/fiction story for Kingston that all at once includes the story of Fa Mu Lan, her mother’s own life, and lessons enveloped in Chinese tradition but stamped with American ideals. Although at times sleepy and seemingly endless, The Woman Warrior is a gem for its use of metaphor, fierceness, and simple tale-telling.

Recommended to anyone with a taste of cultural lit and/or feminism.

Notable excerpt:

“What’s the matter with her?”
“I don’t know. Bad, I guess. You know how girls are. There’s no profit in raising girls. Better to raise geese than girls.”
“I would hit her if she were mine. But then there’s no use wasting all that discipline on a girl. When you raise girls, you’re raising children for strangers.”