From Publisher's Weekly
See's engrossing novel set
in remote 19th-century China details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends (laotong, or "old sames") Lily
and Snow Flower, their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by pride and love. While granting
immediacy to Lily's voice, See (Flower Net) adroitly transmits historical background in graceful prose. Her in-depth research
into women's ceremonies and duties in China's rural interior brings fascinating revelations about arranged marriages, women's
inferior status in both their natal and married homes, and the Confucian proverbs and myriad superstitions that informed daily
life. Beginning with a detailed and heartbreaking description of Lily and her sisters' foot binding ("Only through pain will
you have beauty. Only through suffering will you have peace"), the story widens to a vivid portrait of family and village
life. Most impressive is See's incorporation of nu shu, a secret written phonetic code among women—here between Lily
and Snow Flower—that dates back 1,000 years in the southwestern Hunan province ("My writing is soaked with the tears
of my heart,/ An invisible rebellion that no man can see"). As both a suspenseful and poignant story and an absorbing historical
chronicle, this novel has bestseller potential and should become a reading group favorite as well.