Amy Tan's novels concerning the bonds between Chinese-American mothers and daughters have earned her a worldwide audience. Although immersed in the rich lore of Chinese myth and history, Tan's works transcend the particular and become testaments to the universal themes of love and forgiveness. The author introduces characters who are ambivalent--as she herself once was--about their Chinese background, but who move to a deeper understanding of themselves as they confront their ancestors' struggles in China and America. According to Susan Balee in a Philadelphia Inquirer review, all of Tan's novels "explore the same subject--mother/daughter relationships, with a side focus on the problems of sisterhood--but they don't grow stale with repetition. In this, Tan is perhaps like Jane Austen. . . . No one faults Austen for writing about the same subject again and again. After all, her details vary from novel to novel; she found new ways to approach and explicate her subject.
