***CONTAINS SPOILERS***

I don't know if you know this, but I love books. I love bookstores, online bookstores, used bookstores, and basically any store that carries books. I always have my wish list going on Amazon and I'm constantly looking at it to see if I should buy anything this instant. Lisa See's novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, was one of these books. I saw that it received so many good reviews and I knew that I had to read it, but for some reason it never made it into my cart. Then, one afternoon, I found myself in a used bookstore (how'd that happen?), and they had See's novel on the shelf. Even though there was no one else in the shop with me, I snatched it up like a hot cake.

This book was incredible. Very reminiscent of The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, I was immediately drawn into the story of Lily, a young Chinese girl, who at the young age of 5 endures her foot binding, and ultimately meets with the girl who will become her best friend for life, Snow Flower.

The writing was beautiful and the story was very fast paced. Although it took me a while to read, I was sad to see it end. Much like Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes, the reader follows the main character through her entire life, witnessing not only all of her struggles and failures, but also seeing her love and succeed as a prominent woman of the time. The love between Snow Flower and Lily is immense - I can't imagine having only one friend throughout my life, but these two girls made it look worthwhile.

There were so many hard parts to read in this novel: one being the account of the foot binding. When I read, it's normally as I'm walking and my feet were cringing as I read about what could happen to these girls if their foot binding was done incorrectly. Reading about them walking around their solitary room as they waited for the bones in their feet to break makes me feel a little nauseous as I write about it!

Another really hard thing to read was the worthlessness of the girls of China. To this day, I can't understand how any child could be seen as worthless! The girls were told they would be worthless if they didn't produce sons. They were told to listen to their husband, listen to their mother-in-law, and rarely did you ever see a chance for a girl to stand up for herself and speak for herself. It was just so sad to read that these girls did not have the freedom that is so prominent these days.

It was hard to read about how Lily started off so poor, ultimately ending up so prominent, whereas Snow Flower was the complete opposite.

Ultimately, if you want to learn more about the culture of China, I would recommend this book. It even inspired me to pick up another novel of See's, so I guess I'll have to compare the two when I'm finished. If Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is any indication of See's other work, I'm sure her other novels are amazing as well.

This book is great combination of beautifully written words and a great story of sisterhood. The author has presented the bond between friends in a way that has not been explored in any recent bestsellers and yet, she is able to instantly break your heart with her poetic story.

For anyone who is interested in history, this book is also a good choice because it provides the prospective of a female who has had her feet bound for beauty. Never will you think of beauty as an easy opportunity. The author shows what great lengths women have gone through throuhgout history to become "beautiful".

This is the story of a young woman growing up in China during the time of the Emperors. We follow her through life has she undergoes the torturous procedure known as foot binding, how she's married off to a man her family chooses, and about her special relationship with another young girl not so different from her.

This book was so beautiful and moving, the imagry that Lisa See put into her story really brought the characters to life for me. I would be surprised if this was not one of those books that is remembered for years after the author. Eagerly looking forward to Lisa See's next book Shanghai Girls.

A friend of mine in my book club told me about this book, after I had suggested Shanghai Girls for one of our readings, so I picked up this book right away. I absolutely loved it. It was so detailed and so beautifully written. I felt the girls' pain in this book as they grew up and went through footbinding, then the heartache of deceit as it came to a head. I will likely read this again in the future.

Loved this book. It is a well written and fasinating novel that brings the reader into 18th century China. It is never boring and will keep you turning the pages! The historical details about foot binding, match making, social status, familial relationships, etc. really make this novel come alive. The characters were wonderful and I am becoming a big fan of See's writing. I definitely recommend it!

PS my review title is extra lame :P

3.5 stars. It is 19th century China. As children, Lily and Snow Flower are bound together as laotong - a lifelong friendship - in a society where family and sons are what's really important. They live in different villages, and although Snow Flower comes to visit Lily and her family, they also write to each other in a secret women's language, nu shu.

It wasn't a fast-paced book, but it was interesting to read about the Chinese culture and women's lives during the 19th century.

When I started reading this, I had no idea how hard it would be to put this book down. I found it quite entrancing, I couldn't stop reading it was the same way when I read it for a second time. It is quite the tale of a girl named Lily from China and the relationship between her and her laotong Snow Flower growing up and into adulthood. This is a book I know you'd love and enjoy reading again and again.

Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is an engrossing and interesting story of women's friendships in nineteenth century rural China. This is an excellent, well-written novel and is fascinating on so many levels. Lily, the narrator of the novel is in her eighties and is looking back on her life. She shares the stories of her foot binding, women's secret writing, and the various friendships that she experienced.
Lily's older sister participated in a sworn sisterhood, where a group of young women formed a friendship that was to last until marriage, but Lily is paired with one girl, Snow Flower, her laotong or "old same." Lily and Snow Flower have a love that is stronger than all of her other relationships and it causes them both more heartbreak. The novel is really the story of their friendship, its depths, its deceits, its strengths and it is a fascinating read about a society so different from our own. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan explores female friendship in a setting much different than some today.

"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" occurs in China during the eighteen hundreds. Lily the narrator of the story has reached the age of eighty years and is recounting her life. She wants forgiveness from those who have passed on before her, especially from her laotong Snow Flower. A laotong is a lifetime relationship, that is formed between two females and the commitment runs deeper than the bond between a husband and wife.

Foot binding is explained in explicit detail near the beginning of the book. I was riveted to this chapter and read most of it with my mouth hanging open in terror. If you decide not to read the book, make sure you at least read the chapter on foot binding; it will change your perception of life.

The whole point of foot binding was to make the female more provocative and attractive for her husband; perfect feet also provided better choices for a high-quality husband. Lily's mother is able to create perfect feet during the foot binding process for Lily, but she also suffers a tragedy with another one of her daughters during the process. When feet are bound some suffer severe damage that leaves them unable to walk unaided and one in ten die from the procedure due to infection.

Snow Flower and Lily have an intriguing relationship and the book revolves around their lives from when they are young girls to when they are married and baring children and then to their grave. Lily enjoys the more providential life and has a hard time accepting Snow Flower's life. Lily believes Snow Flower's problems are of her own doing. It is not until the end, that Lily sees the true and bitter facts of Snow Flower's life. Lily's final words for Snow Flower are: "But if the dead continue to have the needs and desires of the living, then I'm reaching out to Snow Flower and the others who witnessed it all. Please hear my words. Please forgive me."

This book does not speak highly of males; the males in the book due to the era of time treat the women like property. The origin of foot binding is controversial and no set reason for the beginning of the practice has been found, but I think it may have to do with controlling women, for in binding their feet they are basically handicapped for life and have to rely on their husbands for everything.

I enjoyed this book, but I found the depth of the characters lacking, I just did not become overly attached to them. Creating new best friend in books is one of the reasons I read, but while a great read, I did not make any best friends in "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" just acquaintances.

I was not going to read this book at all and now I am ever so glad that I did. It is richly detailed, intriguing, stunning and intoxicating. The Chinese people and culture are so absolutely different from what most of us are used to experiencing and the best part of this book for me was trying to wrap my mind around the ways that seem so strange to me.

The book follows Lily from the age of five up until her last years, around 80, which is an exceptionally long life for anyone in nineteenth century China. She goes through all of the things that women went through: the horrific process of having her feet bound, marrying out to her husband's family and leaving her own behind, giving birth and worrying about having only girls. She has some hard times, but for the most part, she is a fortunate woman.

But this story is not really about Lily's life. It is mostly about Snow Flower, who is her laotang. The relationship between laotangs is an extremely special one, deeper and more treasured than that between anyone, even a woman and her husband. They are matched at the age of seven and Lily's deep love for Snow Flower turns out to be the source of a lot of her suffering.

With characters who throb with life, events and customs that thrill with their strangeness, and descriptions that pulsate with richness, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a fascinating study in both Chinese culture and the love between soulmates.

This book was recommended by one of Indigo's ladies at Yonge and Hwy 7. I thought at first it was one of those with a million foreign names that I could never remember, but it wasn't, and I learned a lot about Ancient Chinese cultures and practices. The story is a drama in 1800's China when the women were, in our minds, terribly suppressed and abused, even though the men worked hard in the fields. Some men even truly loved their wives, as did Lily's in this book. Lily is an "old lady" of 80 now, writing her memoirs about her "laotang" -- her lady love whom she met as a little girl of 6. It tells of how they secretly wrote in the "nu shu" language of women and how they endured footbinding at the same time...and how some children died from the gangrene that set in as a result. It tells of the hardships of that empire when other regimes tried to oust the Emperor of that day. It does run along the lines of Heather's other "picks", not an ordinary novel...it is, as my favourite book, Secrets of Gracia del Rossi, a work of literary art. I look forward to reading Lisa's other books. Thank you, Indigo on Hwy 7 -- for the great suggestion.

This was a wonderful novel set in the early 1800s in rural China. We met Lily, a girl in a poor family who has wonderful feet and it is decided when they are bound they might become perfect lilies and thus secure a marriage that could help her family. She gets an old same - a special contractual friendship with a girl in a higher family- named Snow Flower which will help her family over time as well. This is a wonderful novel chronicles Lily and Snow Flower's lives and the messages they write on their secret fan. It transports you to a world we know nothing about. Mesmerizing.

I was entranced by this wondrous book set in remote 19th-century China which details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends Lily and Snow Flower. It is both a suspenseful and poignant story and an absorbing historical chronicle. This is a magical, haunting and achingly beautiful story, a marvel of imagination of a real and secret world that has only recently disappeared. It is a story so mesmerizing that the pages float away and the story remains clearly before us from beginning to end.

Lisa See's book "Snowflower and the Secret Fan" is just amazing - the description of the feet-binding of young girls in China is surreal. The 'binding' of the girls in other ways becomes the way to survive. The story is about two girls and how their lives intertwine and their families expectations.

One of the most exquisite writings of friendship and womanhood despite culture and customs

Living under seige both personally & within various communities becomes the impitus for Snowflower to discover clarity in understanding her own humanity on many levels. This inspiring novel invites the reader to explore insight into cultural liberation and the discovery that perhaps it is not as important or as prominent as gaining personal liberation . When a stone breaks the surface of a still lake the effect does not stop at the point of the stones entry. Likewise the Secret Fan has an impact that no one can imagine.

Beautifully written, this delicate story was lovely to read. We are introduced to paired loatongs (or old-sames), Lily and Snow Flower. In 19th century China, these girls don't share much in common. They both endure ritual footbinding and learn the secret women's language of Nu Shu, using it to write stories and poems on a fan which they share over the years of their friendship.

We follow the girls from their pairing at age 7 well into their later years, sharing in their joy and sorrow. I thouroughly enjoyed this novel, savouring it - as I knew it wouldn't last.

Beautifully written, heart wrenching story of two young women and their lifelong friendship. Their trials and tribulations will bring tears to your eyes. You won't want the story to end!

Simply fabulous. This book is enchanting, as not only does it flow smoothly, but, as well, the reader becomes captivated by the story. The author writes a beautiful story in words, but what is most endearing is the culture that lies beneath.

Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a deeply personal look into the lifelong friendship of two nineteenth-century Chinese women--a friendship that began when they were paired together as laotongs or 'old sames', what we might refer to as 'soul sisters'. Lily and Snow Flower send messages back and forth, written in the secret women's language of nu shu. Hidden in the folds of a fan or on delicate handkerchiefs, the messages linked these two women together in a friendship that was more powerful than a marriage.

This wonderful, loving and tragic story of friendship and betrayal will teach the reader much about Chinese traditions. The stunning description of the lands, the sights and smells, paints vivid images upon the reader's mind. But it is the loving friendship of Lily and Snow Flower that will grip your heart and fill it with yearning to have a laotong of your own. What a powerful and emotional story!

~ Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author of The River, Divine Intervention and Whale Song