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Book Summary and Reviews of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

by Lisa See

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  • Published:
  • Mar 2017, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A thrilling new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See explores the lives of a Chinese mother and her daughter who has been adopted by an American couple.

Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations. Then one day a jeep appears at the village gate - the first automobile any of them have seen - and a stranger arrives.

In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people. In her biggest seller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, See introduced the Yao people to her readers. Here she shares the customs of another Chinese ethnic minority, the Akha, whose world will soon change. Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, translates for the stranger and is among the first to reject the rules that have shaped her existence. When she has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city.

After mother and daughter have gone their separate ways, Li-yan slowly emerges from the security and insularity of her village to encounter modern life while Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl. Despite Haley's happy home life, she wonders about her origins; and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family's destiny for generations.

A powerful story about a family, separated by circumstances, culture, and distance, Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond that connects mothers and daughters.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"With vivid and precise details about tea and life in rural China, Li-Yan's gripping journey to find her daughter comes alive." - Publishers Weekly

"As this is her first book since losing her own mother, bestselling author Carolyn See (to whom it is dedicated), See's focus on the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters, by birth and by circumstance, becomes an extraordinary homage to unconditional love." - Booklist

"With strong female characters, See deftly confronts the changing role of minority women, majority-minority relations, East-West adoption, and the economy of tea in modern China. Fans of See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan will appreciate this novel." - Library Journal

"Although representing exhaustive research on See's part, and certainly engrossing, the extensive elucidation of international adoption, tea arcana, and Akha lore threatens to overwhelm the human drama. Still, a riveting exercise in fictional anthropology." - Kirkus

This information about The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cathryn Conroy

Gripping and Endearing (and a Great Ending!)
This novel does what no other book I have read does: It is 75 percent (or so) fiction and 25 percent (or so) nonfiction. And it works! The story focuses on a Li-yan, a young Chinese woman from the minority Akha tribe in the mountains of Yunnan Province. She violates the Akha cultural taboos in several significant ways, including having a baby before she is married and then later marrying the baby's father of whom her family disapproves. But it is too late. Li-yan had to give up her daughter for adoption. Will she ever find her?

But in addition to a haunting and riveting story that is grounded in solid character development, this book is packed with fascinating information about the history of tea and teamaking in China—and will no doubt make you crave a cup of hot tea.

This is not always an easy book to read. Parts of the story are absolutely horrific to our Western ideas of what is right and wrong. But every piece of it is important and contributes to the story. Bonus: The ending is really good!

Author Lisa See magnificently captures the angst, anger and emotional churning of a mother who feels forced to give up a child for adoption, as well as the feelings of angst, anger and emotional churning endured by the child who always wonders about her birth parents. It is gripping and endearing…and one you will remember long after it ends.

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Author Information

Lisa See Author Biography

Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of The Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at #1. She is also the author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of her Chinese American family's settlement in Los Angeles. See was the recipient of the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association of Southern California and the Historymaker's Award from the Chinese American Museum. She was also named National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women.

Author Interview
Link to Lisa See's Website

Other books by Lisa See at BookBrowse
  • The Island of Sea Women jacket
  • Snow Flower and the Secret Fan jacket
  • Shanghai Girls jacket

9 more...

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