Petals From The Sky Paperback – 1 March 2010

Amazing book

I've thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel!! I've had quite a few laugh-out-loud moments especially at the dialogues between the main character (Meng Ning) and her mother. Her mother is my favourite character in the book! As she never fails to amuse me with her oh-so-Asian(Chinese) mannerisms and her responses about love and life. A prime example is on the very first page - the mother's reaction to Meng Ning's decision to become a nun is pure gold, as it is funny yet true. Humours aside, this book also offer a lot of interesting and thought-provoking insights into Buddhism, different cultures as well as people from different cultures.This book is about a girl's discovery of what she wants in life. Simply put, to be or not to become a Buddhist nun. She knows she she wants, but she's not sure if she has made the right choice and if she can follow through with her plan without regret. This is no ordinary girl, she is intelligent with a Ph. D from Paris, yet naive and inexperienced in a pure and innocent way.I was never bored reading this book, as each chapter was new and unexpected. The main message I got from this book is that life doesn't always turn out the way we plan it to be (as we all should know), yet through its twists and turns in this roller-coaster of life, we discover things and feel things which can surpass our imagination and expectations :)I genuinely love the way Dr Yip writes. Her imagination is amazing and the way she writes to describe emotions, people, places and so forth are real, interesting and at times hilarious! I can't wait for her next novel - Song of the Silk Road!!

This book was in a poor condition.

Novelist Mingmei Yip opens a window of examination to the culture and traditions of Eastern religion in her book Petals From the Sky: Between Devotion and Surrender lies a World of Discovery. Main character Meng Ning at the age of thirteen years old confronts her supposed destiny to becoming a Buddhist nun, but as one reads the first few passages of the book, she is not alone in determining what exact path she must take. It is the people, her family and friends, especially her mother, boyfriend Michael Fuller, nuns Yi Kong and Wong Dai Nam, and others she meets during her journey that helps her to deeply question what she really wants out of life. With the fortunate experiences outside of her traditional Chinese culture and customs that take her away from her country to other parts of the world, Europe and the United States, this plays an essential part in her attempting to understand and determining what decision she will eventually make by the end of the novel.There are several interesting aspects about Petals From the Sky that may draw readers to the storyline that shows that the bridge of understanding between Eastern and Western traditions continues to be told through the art of fiction. Mingmei provides the cultural backdrop but adds more dimension to that element as it relates to ethnic and gender boundaries within the Asian experience that deal with sexuality that have often been taboo or somewhat reserved within conversations or have been quaintly narrated in Chinese classic literature, The Dream of the Red Chamber, that Meng Ning refers to throughout her ordeal; she does a good job presenting those issue within the story, especially with specific chapters that involve Meng Ning's relationships with her mother, Yi Kong, and Michael's former fiancé Lisa. Meng Ning discovers that the path towards the nunnery is more than living a carefree life filled with poetry and mysticism where she has challenges that must be confronted before she could fully commit her life to that particular lifestyle that her mother had wisely suggested and warned her about.Petals From the Sky is a thought-provoking story that is filled with unpredictable moments that may have readers wanting to read the next page. However, it is one of those stories that may appear to be slow in the beginning but gradually builds by the middle and concluding chapters because of the suggestive themes and issues that are not specifically mentioned but are presented within the characters' dialogues. Indeed, one must read carefully in order to find out what is happening between each character, but otherwise, this is an informative novel.

The story started of well enough. As a lover of Chinese culture, having lived in Asia myself, The description of Chinese customs and life in a Buddhist monastery were interestingly and well written aboutThe whole story fell apart when the main protagonist Meng Ning met Michael, an American. The love story felt very unreal and just dragged on and on. I was determined to read it to the bitter end and was actually cross with mysel having wasted my time with it. After a promising start, I felt I was reading absolute rubbish. The author seems to have lost the plot and could not stop and rambled on for another 150 pages with characters who seemed to have had a personality change and become carbon cut outs.