In Which We Discuss Books That Made Me Cry

I read two books today. I didn't mean to, but I finished one in my lunch break, and then I started one on the way home, and the bus broke down, so I finished it.

The first book was Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. It's essentially about mothers and daughters - the things they have in common, and the things they don't.

The story begins with Jing-mei Woo stepping into her mother's shoes after her death - and realizing that she can't. The Joy Luck Club is something her mother invented, while in China during world war one, and something she continued with in America around the time of the second world war. The current members are three other women, who have also come to America from China. Each has a daughter. Each of them has wanted to spare her daughter the torments and sorrows that she went through. Because of this, the daughters never really get to know their mothers - as Jing-Mei, (or June, as she is known), realises when she meets the sisters she never knew she had, and needs to tell them about their mother.

Most of the book is made up of stories from the mothers and daughters. The stories from the mother's various childhoods don't seem to gel with the mothers seen by the daughters; it can be difficult to realise that this staid matron was also the girl you just read about. That's not a bad thing; it's realistic, for a daughter not to realise that her mother was once a person in her own right.

The second book was Mitch Albom's for one more day. I've read one of Mitch Albom's books before - the five people you meet in heaven.

That made me cry too.:(

for one more day is about a man who gets to spend one last day with his mother, who had passed away years before. He gets to say everything he wished he could have before. The little twist at the end was the real tear-jerker, though. I never saw it coming, and it would have been a good book without it, but that twist made it a brilliant book.

I'm trying to work out if Mitch Albom is corny or not. I'm leaning towards no, but I suspect I might be too young to tell the difference.