Limited Interest

The Piano Teacher
Janice Y. K. Lee
Penguin (2009)
Paperback, 352 pages
Rated 2 stars of 5 possible.

The Piano Teacher is written in a present tense, third person point of view that I find disturbing... it's as if someone is secretly watching everything that happens without anyone knowing.  One can almost hear the story being narrated in a whisper.  For unknown or unstated reasons, The Piano Teacher flip-flops between decades - 1940's and 1950's. As a reader, I find this unexplained flipping between decades to be a major distraction.

Claire Pendleton, the charater referred to in the title, seems to have actually very little to do with the story, yet she should be the main character, or the book should have been given a different title. The story seems to be more about Will Truesdale and Trudy Liang and what happened to them during World War II than about Claire. As it is, there's nothing in the book for me to recommend it to anyone.

Of those that are fully developed, none are likable... not even Claire Pendleton, The Piano Teacher, whom, at best, one can pity. In fact, I am only giving this book two stars because the 1950's portion is interesting.  Not so the majority of the book, which takes place approximately a decade earlier. If you're looking for something interesting to read, this probably isn't it.  Parts of it are interesting because of the hisotrical material on Hong Kong... but the characters are either the kind you love to hate or rather flat and uninteresting.

Not recommended.  This review has been simultaneously posted on Amazon.com, Dragonviews and Library Thing.