【读书报告】The Bonesetter's Daughter

What is the book about? Using your own words, write a short summary of the ENTIRE book.

In San Francisco,a mother named Lu Ling is a Chinese old women who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.In order to avoid forgetting all of her past,she written her life experience and family secret on the paper.Her daughter Ruth is a ghost writer who can’t truly understand many aspect of her mother.After living together with her boyfriend for decade,Ruth faced with a really bad situation where his emotion and career were all at a low ebb.In Lu Ling’s narrative,there was a vicissitude of a big family which make inking and do inking business for generations in old Beijing.She also told the tragedy of her biological mother who was a famous bonesetter’s daughter and the hard survival of her and her sister from family enmity and national calamity.after that,they throwing all the sorrow went through a great deal of hardship and finally came to American.When Ruth finished reading her mother’ record,she knew her mother’s past and then understand some strange aspects of her mother’s character.Therefore,she forgave the hurting given by her mother and introspected her mistakes made in her youth.with the guidelines of ancestors and history,she was activated to put down the job of ghost writer,beginning to write down those stories for herself and for her family.


What did you find most interesting or noteworthy about the book? Why?

I think the most impressive or noteworthy things about this book is the attractive way to narrative this story by a fantastic plot arrangement.For example,at the beginning of this book it is the narrative of the ghost writer Ruth who is the daughter of Luling.The recent circumstance and retrospection of her childhood with her mother stretch from her own perspective.Some strange behaviour and character of her mother draw my curiosity very much,which make reader wonder what happened in her mother Luling’s early life in China that is the motherland of Lu Ling.And then in the second part of narrative,Luling began to tell her and her family’s sad but captivating stories in the first person.In her narrative,readers can understand and feel the sorrow and joy of Lu Ling and the rise and fall of her family. When Luling ended her recollection,it turn back to Ruth who tell the ending of this story in the first person again.It’s very wonderful and creative for Author to chose this special way to write this fiction from different angle of the main character.


If you could respond to the author about the contents of the book, what would you say or ask?

A lots people said that this book is a kind of your biography,whose plot was based on some true story happened in your and your family’s life,is that true?
Which character do you like most in this book and why?
What your opinion toward China in the past and modern China?
Do you think China and Chinese culture gave you a lot of inspiration for creation?
What is the distinguished feature of your works by comparing with other books about Chine written by foreign authors?


What are the sentence(s) that impressed you most from the book? Write them here.

Her preferred form of exercise,she told Wendy,was stress.
“I used to be in corporate communications.Then I started freelance editing,and a few years ago I took on more full-scale book collaboration,mostly inspirational and self-improvement books,better health,better sex,better soul,that kind of thing.” “You’re a book doctor.”
Some things you do for yourself,some things you do for others.Maybe they’re the same.
“Frankly,I like living alone,”she heard herself saying.She had convinced herself this was true. “And what if you met the ideal partner?” “He can stay ideal in his place,and I’ll stay ideal in mine.Then we won’t get into all that shit about whose hair is clogging up the drain.”
And maybe we were born right and that was why we were wrong for each other.
Free time was the most precious time,when you should be doing what you loved,or at least slowing down enough to remember what made your life worthwhile and happy.
A person should consider how things begin.A particular beginning results in a particular end.
You are beauty,we are beauty,we are divine,unchanged by time.


reading experience reflections
Congratulations on finish reading one more book! How would you describe this reading experience? How does this experience differ from the previous ones? Explain.

I think this is a very fantastic and amazing reading experience.I appreciate this book very much and enjoy the process of reading which made me feel that I was not in the dormitory or classroom but somewhere in the book with those character.

My precious one is 《Life and Death in Shanghai》 whose content is more like a record of actual events and embrace a highly ideological level as well as facticity.But 《The Bonesetter's Daughter》 turn out to be a very wonderful fiction full of fantastic story due to its literariness and imagination.Additionally,I think my capacity for reading comprehension was improved because it cost me relatively shorter time to finish it and I can understand more quickly and easily about the meaning and feelings conveyed by author.

What are the major problems you come across from this reading experience? List the most challenging ones.

I read this book in my reader-kindle.So when I finished this book,I accumulated a number of strange words,which I looked up in my kindle and remembered it at that time.But after a while,I forgot the majority of this words just like I met them at the first time,which frustrated me a lot.

How do you solve the above-mentioned problems? Do you find your strategies effective? Why or why not?

Solutions to the above-mentioned problem:
I inputted all this words into my Kingsoft Overword in ipod.
Learn the correct pronunciation and abundant meaning of new words.
Using Kingsoft Overword in computer to print new words in paper.
Bring those paper with me and remember those words frequently.

I find my strategies effective. After finishing those above-mentioned steps,I can memorize the new words I came across in the book conveniently and efficiently.And it’s more easy for me to memorized it because I still had some impression about those words which I once read in book.