☮Karen's Reviews > The Hundred Secret Senses

** spoiler alert ** When I bought this at a used book sale, there was a note inserted, "Her best book." That said, I'm still surprised to see the general rating for this book is higher than The Joy Luck Club and Bonesetter's Daughter, the 2 other Amy Tan books I have read. I didn't like this one quite as much, but still gave it a 4 for it's ability to keep me interested. The main character, Olivia, has an older half sister, Kwan, come live with the family after spending her formative years in China. It takes Olivia some getting used to having this very talkative (to put it mildly) foreigner move into her American home. Kwan keeps Olivia up at night relating stories of ghosts and China. (Spoiler here:) All the stories that Kwan relates to Olivia turn out to be revelations of one of Kwan's past lives, and not dreams as you might first assume. Do you believe in ghosts? In reincarnation? Not something I really think about, but what I never would have imagined is someone having such total recall of a former life, such as Kwan did. It really bored me with details at first, but then Tan upped the pace considerably once the 2 of them go to China together along with Olivia's estranged husband. Kwan is truly a sweetie and loveable, whereas Olivia often acts like a spoiled brat when dealing with her husband and within the sister relationship. Then she is made to question who Kwan really is, why she has shown up in her life, will she ever get back with her husband, as well as what is real and what isn't. Great ending.