The Piano Teacher--a review

I've decided that since I've been reading a lot lately and that I currently have a stack of 10 library books sitting on my dining room table waiting to be read, that I will start doing reviews of the books I read. I'm not a literary genius and often don't care about the underlying message, so my reviews won't be deep and intellectual...just what I thought of the book (unless the book really touched me or something like that)...

I just recently finished The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee.

My review: This was a decent book about basically about 3 main characters. It takes place during the 1940s and 1950s in Hong Kong. The story was good enough, my main beef was that they author, who is from Hong Kong and lives there now, didn't really give me enough background on the culture and 'feeling' of Hong Kong at that time period. I did quite a bit of googling "History of Hong Kong" so I could understand a little better why the characters were doing and acting like they were. I wish that the characters had been developed a little better, too. Especially the main male character. I never really "got" him. Would I recommend this book? Oh, probably. It's quite bland and won't really keep you captivated, but it's okay. Mostly this book left me wanting to learn about Hong Kong and it's culture, politics, people, etc. The story really has potential, it just needed to be deeper.

You can read it quickly, so if you want a quick read, it would be fine.

On a scale of 0-5 stars, I'd give it 3 stars.

Thanks--hope you enjoyed the review.


Up next...The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold (author of The Lovely Bones). Just a little heads up on this one...I HATE IT, so far. I'm only about 50 pages in, but I'm really considering not finishing it. I just keep telling myself it'll get better. I don't know...I really, REALLY do not like it.