Book Review: Petals from the Sky by Mingmei Yip

Title: Petals From The Sky
Author: Mingmei Yip
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Kensington; 1 edition (March 1, 2010)
Genre: Fiction, Multi-Cultural
Source: Library

Summary: Twenty-year old Meng Ning decides to be come a Buddhist nun, against the wishes of her mother. She travels abroad to study Buddhism and meets a young American doctor at a Buddhist retreat in Hong Kong. They become close and as they say, the rest is history. Or maybe not...Meng Ning must choose between the young doctor and her wish to emulate the life of a Buddhist nun who had influenced her during her childhood. The book takes place in Mainland China, Manhattan, Paris and Hong Kong.

Comments: I learned more about Buddhism from this novel.The story of the Buddhist nun, Yi Kong, Meng Ning's mentor who inspired her to study Buddhism, showed how women fit into the religion. I thought Meng Ning's story could have wrapped up sooner, however. The tension in her relationship between the American doctor Michael Fuller versus Yi Kong her mentor dragged on a little too long, though I enjoyed it as a love story and a story of a young Chinese woman's contact with the life and ideas of the West.

Author biography: Mingmei Yip grew up in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States in 1992. Her debut novel, Peach Blossom Pavilion, which tells the story of the last in the Chinese tradition of poet-musician-courtesans, was published by Kensington in 2008.

Her new novel, Petals from the Sky, was inspired by Mingmei's life since she befriended powerful Buddhist nuns in her youth and was once groomed to be one.(Amazon)

My rating:  3 1/2 to 4 stars.

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, China Challenge, Support your Local Library Challenge

Library Loot: Petals from the Sky by Mingmei Yip

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg @ ReadingAdventures and Eva at A Striped Armchair.




  

Petals From The Sky by Mingmei Yip, is new in paperback. Twenty-year old Meng Ning decides to be come a Buddhist nun, against the wishes of her mother. She travels abroad to study Buddhism and meets a young American doctor after a fire at the Budhist retreat. They become close and as they say, the rest is history. Or maybe not...Meng Ning must choose between the young doctor and religion. I'm curious to see which it is. The book takes place in China, Manhattan, Paris and Hong Kong, so there is an added incentive to read it. Armchair travel while you read a love story!

I found Gwyn Cready's first two books, Seducing Mr. Darcy, which I've seen on a lot of blogs, and Tumbling Through Time. One blogger preferred the first book to her third, Flirting with Forever. These romances are a combination of time-travel, chick lit, and racy fantasy with some humor thrown in. I'm reading Cready as we graduated from the same university! At least that's my excuse for reading spicy romances, which is a new genre for me. By the way, here is the link to my review of Flirting with Forever.

I also picked up my favorite kind of book, Assassins of Athens by Jeffrey Siger, a Chief Inspector Kaldis thriller set in Greece. The novel takes us into the criminal side of Athens' night life and the "glittering world of Athens society. " Sounds like a book for me.  Siger also wrote the well-known Murder in Mykonos which I have on my list to read.

These are the books I came away with! What have you borrowed from the library, or bought?