Reviews for Petals from the Sky

The average rating for Petals from the Sky based on 2 reviews is 1 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-07-07 00:00:00 Judson Siegel Ugh. It started out with a sort of a slightly jumpy literary-vibe, jumpy in the sense that the topics covered by the protagonist's POV tended to bounce around a lot. But it was okay, I've read worse... Then when the protagonist goes to Hong Kong for a Buddhist retreat, I kept wondering if this was supposed to be some sort of facetious commentary or satire of commercialized Buddhism...except the main character's voice remained deadly serious. She spouted sound-bites of Buddhist philosophy, but half the time it seemed as if they were just thrown out there as window-dressing without trying to explain any inconsistencies, with no real sense of conviction. The fire that got the interracial romance portion of the story rolling was rather baffling in its suddenness. The romance that occurred afterward was perfunctory, with very spare dialogue. I figure the author is trying to aspire to artsy films like In the Mood For Love, where the characters can just say the most mundane things to each other and sizzle away in cigarette smoke and red-hued upholstry. HOWEVER, the author overrates her ability to evoke any sort of atmospheric setting or romantic inclinations in her descriptions, and the romance had already sizzled out for me right as it was beginning. Also, the random insinuations of lesbian nun-love were confusing the heck out of me. Then I got bored. Will not finish this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-06-20 00:00:00 David St. Laurent This book showed a lot of promise in the beginning, and I would have enjoyed it more had it stayed truer to the Buddhist elements and skipped the whole New York adventure. I think the encounters between Meng Ning and both Philip and Lisa were completely superfluous and and had no real purpose except maybe to add some drama. To me it just seemed ridiculous that all these beautiful Americans were suddenly like vultures on this one woman trying to seduce her... It made me dislike Meng Ning not only for allowing it to happen, but also for being able to return to Michael without any apparent guilt. This book just wasn't what I was expecting and to be honest I was kind of put off by the whole Lisa/Meng Ning encounter and unfortunately that ruined the rest of the book for me.