Jaclyn’s Review: The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
written by Lisa See
published by Scribner, 2017

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Apple Books, Target, Walmart, Kobo, Book Depository, Goodreads

Did I enjoy this book? This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I had to wait for a while to get it from the library. Based on that, my expectations for this book were pretty high. I had a really difficult time getting into this book. Honestly, if I wasn’t rained out on a beach vacation, I probably would have stopped reading this one. It has a slow start, and it was difficult to understand the culture that the book was based on. I just couldn’t grasp that the story began in the early 1990s with people so completely removed from any civilization. I ran out of books, so I kept reading anyway–and boy, I’m glad I did! After I made it halfway through the book, I couldn’t put it down. I really wanted to know what was going to happen with the characters and where the story was going to go. It took me a long time, but I can actually say that I liked this book.
 

 
Would I recommend it? This book is a time investment to read. If you are looking for a good story with a tidy ending, this is a good book for you. Just be prepared, it is SLOW.
 

 

About the book – from Goodreads: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, “one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot” (The New York Times Book Review), a moving novel about tradition, tea farming, and the bonds between mothers and daughters.

In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen.

The stranger’s arrival marks the first entrance of the modern world in the lives of the Akha people. Slowly, Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock—conceived with a man her parents consider a poor choice—she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city.

As Li-yan comes into herself, leaving her insular village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each searches for meaning in the study of Pu’er, the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for centuries.

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

 

 
 

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** This post first appeared on Every Free Chance Books (everyfreechance.com) on August 15, 2019.