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Outstanding
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Chicago Sun-Times Sharon Barrett
Despite the extreme contrasts in the humorous stories and the serious ones, Tan has made of them a flavorful concoction of sweet and sour. Read it and have a few good laughs. Read it and weep.
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Outstanding
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Booklist Donna Seaman
Writing with stinging irony about oppression, genocide, culture clashes, religion, media spin, and corruption, [Tan] slyly considers the unintended consequences of everything from a thwarted seduction to a war based on lies. [1 Sep 2005, p.8]
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Tan seems to be having fun with it, indulging in the wry, witty voice of Bibi while still exploring her signature questions of fate, connection, identity and family. [29 Aug 2005, p.34]
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Outstanding
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Daily Telegraph Elena Seymenliyska
Subtle and gripping.
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Favorable
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The Independent Lisa Gee
Saving Fish from Drowning is engaging and enjoyable. Tan's warm-hearted humour and characteristically kooky characters serve to keep the reader hooked, while her clear-eyed questioning undercuts a tendency toward whimsical sentimentality.
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Favorable
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Library Journal Maureen Neville
Tan has admirably tackled the unique challenge of building a novel based on a real-life incident and turning the resulting tale into a commentary on the ironies of modern life. [1 Oct 2005, p.70]
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times Yxta Maya Murray
"Saving Fish From Drowning's" Americans don't spend their time relic-stealing or barbarian-hunting. Instead, they learn they are in sore need of the Buddha's gifts in a world made incomprehensible by violence and strife. [14 Oct 2005]
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Sara Peyton
How much you enjoy "Saving Fish From Drowning" may have to do with how willing you are to be bewitched by a superbly executed, goodhearted farce that is part romance and part mystery with a political bent. With Tan's many talents on display, it's her idiosyncratic wit and sly observations about the nature of illusion that make this book pure pleasure.
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Favorable
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Sydney Morning Herald Michael McGirr
One of the characteristics of Amy Tan's writing is that you end up sympathising with characters you thought you'd loathe.
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Favorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Donna Bailey Nurse
The novel is never really about what will happen, but about how the story will be told, about how many versions will exist and whose will dominate. It's about the power of language and its use for good or evil, and the persistence of ghosts. [22 Oct 2005, p.D16]
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Favorable
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USA Today Carol Memmott
A hilarious yet politically charged tale packed with illusions and the human capacity for love.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Andrew Sullivan
The book has clever moments and some good one-liners, but none of Tan's books is funny; humor is not her forte. She has a clunky way with irony, and the sprawling slapstick set pieces at the core of this effort are draggy and inept.
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Mixed
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Kirkus Reviews
The author's research ultimately smothers her story and characters. A pity, because this vividly imagined tale might very well have been her best yet. [1 Aug 2005, p.813]
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Though she's a top-notch observer of the upper-class American abroad, her characters are tethered to a weirdly loopy and farcical story line. The rich, sinister material and Tan's sharply drawn tourists deserve better. [21 Oct 2005, p.78]
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Mixed
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Boston Globe Gail Caldwell
When it finds its point, "Saving Fish From Drowning" is replete with the riches that have made Tan's reputation. She can be smart, funny, and above all a powerful storyteller... But the novel is so suffused with repetition and dead-end anecdotes that the reader is as weary as our disoriented tourists by the time the action starts.
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Mixed
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The Onion A.V. Club Tasha Robinson
An impressive narrative step up from Tan's previous gorgeous but increasingly samey domestic-exotic dramas, and it's impressively cynical and misanthropic, more like a Chuck Palahniuk novel than like The Joy Luck Club. But all the ambition it adds to Tan's normal strengths would come through clearer with a few subtractions: say, of half the unnecessary characters, a third of the repetitive length, and most of the gimmicks and veils.
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Mixed
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Daily Telegraph Kate Chisolm
A pertinent exploration of the dangers of cross-cultural confusions is buried deep within this strange concoction of comic travelogue, murder mystery and jungle horror story, but in the end Tan can't resist the slushy sunset and feel-good resolution.
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Mixed
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The Guardian Pascal Khoo Thwe
The descriptions of the tourists are highly entertaining, and their interactions dynamic and spontaneous... The plot, however, is formulaic, rather too close to that of a Hollywood blockbuster, while the non-American characters are somewhat wooden and stilted, like extras in an action movie, there solely for visual effect.
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Unfavorable
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Washington Post Craig Nova
The central element of this book's plot, the kidnapping, doesn't take place until after 230 pages of... inane observations, and by the time you get there, you're ready to go home.
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