Review - 'The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane' by Lisa See

I feel conflicted about The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. On the one hand, it is a beautifully written story. As someone who drinks a lot of tea, I was excited to discover in the book's pages pu'er tea, a fermented type of tea that I have never had or even heard of. The book contains a lot of well-researched information about the Akha people, an ethnic minority in China. It's also a story of yearning between a birth mother and the daughter she gave up for adoption.

But I feel like some parts of this story fell short. Every big event in here comes across as very convenient. An example is when Li-yan doesn't want to date, but meets a woman and becomes friends with her, and the women's son just so happens to be a perfect match for her, and he also happens to be exceedingly rich! Another is how Li-yan keeps running into the same friend in different cities. It makes sense where there are a few events like this in a book to move a plot along, but when every thing is a coincidence, it makes the story feel very contrived.

Another problem is that for a book built on its characters, they don't seem particularly self-aware. For example, Li-yan comes from a very superstitious society, to the point where they think twins are evil, and so twins born must be killed immediately. Years later, once she's been out to see the world and become educated, and this topic comes up again, instead of acknowledging that this was atrocious, she just brushes it aside and says her village doesn't do it anymore. She also comes from a society that values sons over daughters. After lamenting during her younger years how she feels marginalized as a woman, when she becomes pregnant as an adult, she keeps repeating to herself that she wants a son and not a daughter. This consistent lack of growth is a real missed opportunity, and it makes the characters unlikable and unrelatable to me.

Another odd thing is that this journey of self discovery and attempt to reunite birth mother and daughter ended really abruptly. Mother and daughter lay eyes on each other and that's the end of the book. For how much this book built up the yearning for one's own blood relatives, I don't know why the author would choose to just end the book like that when there was so much more to tell.

In the end, this story had so much potential. While it delivered on some, I was ultimately let down by all the missed opportunities and wish for how much more it could have been.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars