** spoiler alert ** 
 i give tis four stars because i did find it a good book but somewhere in the middle i found it a bit boring i felt as if the authour was just writing for the need to fill in pages, but it's an interesting story told by an old woman about herself she tells how she changed and what happened from her being a girl(milk days) to lady/teenager (hairpinning days) to woman (rice and salt days) to an old woman (sitting quietly). she came from a poor family but found fortune in her feet. she lived when they still bound girls' feet to make them small and delicate, a painful thing to read in a book imagine actually experiencing it! anyway she makes a good friend who comes from a good family (wealthy) and from then on tells the story of her ever growing intimate relationship with this other girl-snow flower. they endure through good and bad, death, wedding, celebrations, but as they start to become mothers things change. a story about friendship and misunderstanding mixed within the cultures of the chinese, like their funerals, traditions, belief and most importantly the women's secret nu shu writing.