The Hundred Secret Senses

By: Amy Tan

Narrated by: Amy Tan

Years after her Chinese half-sister assails her with ghost stories set in the mysterious world of Yin, Olivia — a young woman from San Francisco — finds herself in China. Looking for a way to reconcile her past with dreams for her future, Olivia's American assumptions are shaken by Chinese ghosts, but she also finds reasons to hope.

Read by author Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses unfolds a series of family secrets that question the connections between fate and chance, belief and hope, memory and imagination.

©2006 Amy Tan (P)2006 Phoenix Books, Inc.

Great book. Terrible audio quality

Multiplied times throughout the story the narrator sounds like they are reading under water or with a microphone in their pocket. Super muffled. Really wish they would re-record it. Great story

My Favorite Amy Tan

This was my favorite Amy Tan. She seems to always make her protagonists selfish, but the other characters are delightful. This also had some good Chinese ghosts, which are always fun.

Storytelling

An awful lot of storytelling within the story, at the expense of action and plot. An interesting mixture of cultures though. Not my favorite Amy Tan.

I'm glad I finally bought this.

I've had this on my wishlist for years, afraid to finally pull the trigger on it because of the negative reviews about the recording. I'm so glad I decided to get it, regardless. Here's my honest assessment: Yes, the recording is flawed. It's not often, not close to being a problem in every chapter, but every once in a while the sound comes in quiet and muffled. It's obvious that it happens when the production staff has begun a new recording session with Tan, and their audio levels have not been adjusted correctly. For some reason her publisher swears that they've fixed the issue, but clearly they missed some spots.

As for Amy Tan's performance- it's marvelous. I honestly can't imagine someone else narrating this book half so well. Her voice for Kwan in particular was so perfect. I've given the performance 4 stars only because Tan's publisher has done her no favors by not entirely fixing the technical issues, but her skills as narrator truly deserve 5 stars.

As for the story, (and here is an extremely mild spoiler) I completely understand why some people would find the main character unlikeable. On a close listen, I don't think she likes herself very much. Or at least, as she is reflecting back on her life, she does not have kind things to say about her behavior. To me, this clearly reads as shame and regret- something that I genuinely found refreshing. Writing in the first person pov of a character with a huge character arc isn't easy- but Tan pulls it off quite well.

I've added this to my "favorites" list.

Quan’s character is lovely

Book is well-crafted and imaginative. The characters are well formed and engaging. The story is interesting and the relationships are not syrupy sweet but endearing