Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I breezed through this book in one day; there is really nothing here of any value from the perspective of a parent (which I am), of a teacher (which I am, too), or of an American interested in the interplay of American culture and other, non-American, cultures (which I am as well). Most of the negative reviews of this book get it right: way too much stereotyping and horrific scenes of tragic family life, bordering on emotional abuse. The author will appear soon in a local bookstore here, but I'll skip it. Much of the problem with this book is that the author is not Chinese at all; she grew up in the United States, and is as American as my Grandmother, born of German parents and raised in Kentucky. It is almost as if she yearns to recreate what she imagines a Chinese mother would be. Therein lies a psychologically revealing truth for the whole book. If I were Chinese, I would be offended by her approach; being American, I am offended by her approach. The book is rather simple-minded; especially for an author who should know better. Hard work is hard work; abuse is abuse. I am not sure that ethnicity factors into it; in fact, replace her claims of "Chinese mother" with "African mother" or "Hispanic mother" and the level of the insult becomes clear. I wondered throughout the book how Chua would have treated her children had they been autistic or dislexic or, God forbid, retarded. She was lucky; other parents don't have the good fortune of healthy children, Yale careers or New Haven neighborhoods. Her weak conclusion to the book comes almost as an afterthought; it is a tired platitude, as frustrating after 229 pages, as it is dull-witted.