Rating: 
Summary: Poorly written book thinly disguised as a thriller .........
Review: It is best not to believe everything you read - for instance international thriller this book is most certainly not as put forward by an editorial review. See has a very long way to go before she can even remotely be compared to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as yet another editorial review so unbelievably claimed.This book had poor characterisations with unquestionable plots, there were too many loose ends, the story too pat - in fact a really dreadful book. I did not remotely enjoy anything about this book - it is a poor excuse for a thriller and I do not recommend it. Give this one a miss.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly written book thinly disguised as a thriller .........
Review: It is best not to believe everything you read - for instance international thriller this book is most certainly not as put forward by an editorial review. See has a very long way to go before she can even remotely be compared to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as yet another editorial review so unbelievably claimed. This book had poor characterisations with unquestionable plots, there were too many loose ends, the story too pat - in fact a really dreadful book. I did not remotely enjoy anything about this book - it is a poor excuse for a thriller and I do not recommend it. Give this one a miss.
Rating:
Summary: WHAT A BOMB!
Review: It's a good thing China doesn't have a bomb as big as this book. What a stupid mystery this was. The author doesn't have a clue about what makes a mystery work or how a plot has to pay off in the end. The characters are cardboard and dull, the dialogue laughable, and the story much ado about nothing. A definite NO SALE!
Rating: 
Summary: Weak, but here's an idea . . .
Review: Lisa See's family memoir "On Gold Mountain" was terrific, which is probably why I'm so angry at "The Interior" and its predecessor, "The Flower Net." The stilted dialogue and clunky, improbable plot rendered "The Flower Net" unreadable, and while "The Interior" has many of the same problems, it also has the seeds of what could be a really interesting book. In "The Interior," heroine Lin Hulan goes undercover on an assembly line in a factory producing goods for a U.S. company. There, See almost seems relieved to be able to abandon the pretense of writing an international thriller and puts herself into the heads of regular people trying to walk the survival tightrope in a changing China. This is good stuff. See writes with confidence, and very quickly creates characters the reader can care about. Once the book goes back to its international-business-conspiracy plot, it becomes frenetic and indicative. Lisa See obviously has great feeling for China and its people. Why doesn't she drop this thriller thing and write a novel about China, focusing entirely on Chinese characters? That would be worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Weak, but here's an idea . . .
Review: Lisa See's family memoir "On Gold Mountain" was terrific, which is probably why I'm so angry at "The Interior" and its predecessor, "The Flower Net." The stilted dialogue and clunky, improbable plot rendered "The Flower Net" unreadable, and while "The Interior" has many of the same problems, it also has the seeds of what could be a really interesting book. In "The Interior," heroine Lin Hulan goes undercover on an assembly line in a factory producing goods for a U.S. company. There, See almost seems relieved to be able to abandon the pretense of writing an international thriller and puts herself into the heads of regular people trying to walk the survival tightrope in a changing China. This is good stuff. See writes with confidence, and very quickly creates characters the reader can care about. Once the book goes back to its international-business-conspiracy plot, it becomes frenetic and indicative. Lisa See obviously has great feeling for China and its people. Why doesn't she drop this thriller thing and write a novel about China, focusing entirely on Chinese characters? That would be worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: A different but terrific read
Review: Police Inspector Liu Hulan learns first hand about the cost of being a heroine in China. When she and American attorney David Stark solved a case together, the media called them heroes. Now, her relationship with David is under assault as the People's Daily twists the truth turning her into a "Red Princess." David is leading the buyout of an American-owned toy factory. If successful, his career will skyrocket to the ozone layer. At the same time Ling Suchee, the mother of the deceased Miaoschan, a worker at the toy factory, pleads with Liu to investigate her daughter's death. Police officer Captain Woo officially rules Miaoschan's death as a suicide without making any inquiries. Suchee feels her daughter Miaoschan was murdered. Liu investigates the case to ascertain if foul play occurred. To obtain the truth, Liu goes undercover as a factory worker to learn about working conditions. This places her on the opposite side of her American lover when it comes to the factory. However, neither David nor Liu expected the violence that soon occurs. THE INTERIOR, the second Hulan mystery (see FLOWER NET), is an intriguing look inside China. The story line starts out very fresh and exciting. However, some of the uniqueness vanishes and the plot slows down when the tale takes a twist towards a more westernized thriller. The relationship between David and Liu is interesting mostly because of the Chinese reporter Bi Peng's spin on it. Lisa See provides her audience with an interesting look at a nation that has been shrouded in secrecy for several decades. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Exotic, complicated, nicely written thriller.
Review: The best feature of "The Interior" is its setting. Lisa See brings China alive for the reader. She sets most of this novel in the countryside of modern day China and she uses flashbacks to fill in the background of the story. She has the characters speaking in transliterated Chinese, which adds to the verisimilitude and to the colorful nature of the narrative. I like the complexity of the characters, especially Liu Hulan, who is extremely flawed, yet fascinating. The author also effectively uses topical subjects to make the book come alive, such as the use of child labor in China to make products for export, the "action-figure" craze (which brings to mind Pokemon and the like), the exploitation of workers who labor under terrible conditions for little pay, and the shaky relationship between the United States and China. The mystery is not bad, but it is a little too complicated and melodramatic at the end. The book could have been cut as well. It is almost 400 pages, which seems a little long. However, Lisa See has a freshness and an originality that is missing from most of the formulaic fiction that is written these days.
Rating:
Summary: Exotic, complicated, nicely written thriller.
Review: The best feature of "The Interior" is its setting. Lisa See brings China alive for the reader. She sets most of this novel in the countryside of modern day China and she uses flashbacks to fill in the background of the story. She has the characters speaking in transliterated Chinese, which adds to the verisimilitude and to the colorful nature of the narrative. I like the complexity of the characters, especially Liu Hulan, who is extremely flawed, yet fascinating. The author also effectively uses topical subjects to make the book come alive, such as the use of child labor in China to make products for export, the "action-figure" craze (which brings to mind Pokemon and the like), the exploitation of workers who labor under terrible conditions for little pay, and the shaky relationship between the United States and China. The mystery is not bad, but it is a little too complicated and melodramatic at the end. The book could have been cut as well. It is almost 400 pages, which seems a little long. However, Lisa See has a freshness and an originality that is missing from most of the formulaic fiction that is written these days.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating portrayal of rural China (good story, too!)
Review: The previous reviewer doesn't seem to have actually read The Interior -- at least not the same book I did. I was struck from the beginning of this book by just how different it is from your average thriller. Just the information about what life is like in rural China was enough to keep me reading -- it seems like See has done a lot of research on the subject (either that or she has a great imagination...) In any case, I felt that she used this very specific local, and lifestyle as a jumping off point for what turned out to be a great story as well. I just love the character of Liu Hulan -- she's new new twist on the detective fiction heroine -- and her relationship with David Stark is one we can all identify with in this global village we live in. How can people from two such different backrounds make a relationship work? This book is much more than a thriller - it's a rich and complex novel.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: This book is as fascinating as Flower Net. I thank Lisa See for presenting China in a way that I would never have imagined it. The mystery is good and there's nothing outrageous about it like so many mystery novels. All in all a wonderful read. Ignore the bad reviews and "see" for yourself!
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