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Book reviews
Oct. 7th, 2023 02:54 pmSo far, I've read 21 books this year, which is an abysmal number compared to past years. Of course, there are still 3 months left, and I have a bunch of library holds, so maybe I'll get up to 30 books read this year. But...yeah, it's felt like a really bad reading year for me overall. I've barely enjoyed any of the books I've read; my favorite reads have been This Book Kills by Ravena Guron, She Started It by Sian Gilbert, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, and The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou.
The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa Matlin
Genre: Adult, thriller
To be honest, I've been puzzling over my feelings about this book for several weeks.
It started off absolutely amazing: the promise of a haunted murder house combined with a protagonist whose seemingly picture-perfect life hides the fact that she is a con artist and her marriage is falling apart. But somehow, by the 50% mark or so...the plot fell apart for me.
Maybe it was because, ultimately, this isn't really a book with a happy ending. It's about a terrible person who does terrible things and doesn't get redeemed. Some may find that empowering; I prefer to have a protagonist I can root for, even if they're extremely flawed. But I ultimately couldn't really root for Sarah Slade.
(I also couldn't help feeling like Sarah Slade was unintentionally written to be an undiagnosed autistic, which made me wonder if the author is an undiagnosed autistic...)
The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker
Genre: YA, fantasy
This was my most anticipated book of the year, and I loved Baker's Keeper of Night duology, so I was so sure I would love this book. I mean, FullMetal Alchemist meets Tang Dynasty China? Sign me up, right???
Spoiler alert: I did not enjoy this book. For me, it was a 2-star read. And that hurts my soul.
The parts I loved included the magic system (how the alchemy worked), Zilan herself was a compelling protagonist, her relationship with her cousins was great (I always love the way Kylie Lee Baker writes sibling relationships), and Li Hong was exactly the kind of soft, awkward boy I love. That was about it.
The plot, generally, goes like this: Zilan studies and takes the alchemy exam, in multiple stages, eventually traveling from her home city of Guangzhou to Chang'an (the imperial capital). She eventually achieves her dream of becoming a royal alchemist and gets embroiled in the intrigue surrounding the imperial family, including Empress Wu Zetian and Crown Prince Li Hong. It sounds fine on paper, yet the pacing occasionally felt weirdly off to me. Maybe it's because we all know that Zilan will pass the alchemy exam, otherwise there would be no story, so the exam itself starts to drag after a while? I'm not sure.
I found the side characters somewhat lacking in this book, which was a bit disappointing since there wasn't a single side character in the Keeper of Night duology that I thought was dull or two-dimensional. Zheng Sili existed to be the stock rival and also raging misogynist. The other royal alchemists were barely characters. Aside from Zilan, her cousins Wenshu and Yufei, Li Hong, and Wu Zetian, no one else was memorable.
My main problem was that this book felt very Game of Thrones-grimdark. The plot mostly consisted of terrible tragedy after terrible tragedy happening to Zilan. Ren from The Keeper of Night also experienced discrimination, yet she was able to cathartically beat the pulp out of most people who crossed her. Zilan isn't powerless, but the sheer number of horrible things happening to her—sexism, classism, discrimination for being biracial, her plans going terribly wrong—was overwhelming. And I can't do grimdark fantasy. It's too depressing and anxiety-inducing for me.
And now...for the historical part of this book.
There is an author's note saying that, because this is an alternate history Tang Dynasty China with alchemy, readers shouldn't expect complete accuracy. Fair. But...there were parts of this book that struck me as "not enough research" done rather than deliberately changing historical details to serve the story.
And I hate nitpicking the author for this. For authors who are first-generation Chinese American, or even second-gen immigrants who have close ties to China, I don't feel as bad, because y'all should know better. But from her author's note, I genuinely felt for Kylie Lee Baker. I strongly believe diaspora authors should have the freedom to explore our heritages. I don't believe there's ever a threshold we have to cross before we can start telling stories drawn from our ancestral homeland, because all that does is discourage diaspora authors from even doing research. I know exactly how it feels, because I felt—I feel—the exact same way.
But I've spent a lot of the past year reading xianxia novels from China. I've also done my own research for my novels. And my autistic, detail-oriented mind has a hard time not pointing these things out if I notice them.
1. The clothing. Characters are frequently mentioned as putting things "in their pockets." The thing is, traditional Chinese clothes do not have pockets; people stored things either in the front of their robes, in their sleeves, or in external pouches. A charitable reading is that maybe the author meant that characters were putting things in pockets sewn into their sleeves. But there was also a part in which someone helps Zilan "unbutton the back of her dress," and that is clearly not how traditional Chinese clothes work.
2. The floor. This is an extremely nitpicky detail, but there was a part where the imperial palace was described as having "porcelain tiles" on the floor, and I was like ??? The floors of Chinese houses were made of wood or stone.
3. Honorifics. Zilan was referred to as "Zilan xiǎojiě" by the prince (I can't recall off the top of my head if anyone else called her that). The thing is, "xiǎojiě" (小姐) is a modern Mandarin form of addressing young women. If you watch C-dramas or read xianxia novels, you'll notice that characters never call young women "xiǎojiě", but "gūniang" (姑娘) instead. I kind of wish the author had stuck to calling Zilan "Miss Zilan" instead to avoid this trap.
Also, Yufei should never address Wenshu as "Wenshu-gē" but only as "gēge." In Chinese, referring to someone as "[name]-gē" is what you would call an older male friend, not your actual brother. (If you have multiple older brothers, you would call them based on their order of birth. The oldest would be "gēge", the second would be "èrgē" ("second brother"), the third would be "sāngē" ("third brother"), etc.)
So...yeah. I may still give the sequel a try because I thought The Empress of Time was even better than The Keeper of Night, but right now, I'm just disappointed and sad.
The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa Matlin
Genre: Adult, thriller
To be honest, I've been puzzling over my feelings about this book for several weeks.
It started off absolutely amazing: the promise of a haunted murder house combined with a protagonist whose seemingly picture-perfect life hides the fact that she is a con artist and her marriage is falling apart. But somehow, by the 50% mark or so...the plot fell apart for me.
Maybe it was because, ultimately, this isn't really a book with a happy ending. It's about a terrible person who does terrible things and doesn't get redeemed. Some may find that empowering; I prefer to have a protagonist I can root for, even if they're extremely flawed. But I ultimately couldn't really root for Sarah Slade.
(I also couldn't help feeling like Sarah Slade was unintentionally written to be an undiagnosed autistic, which made me wonder if the author is an undiagnosed autistic...)
The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker
Genre: YA, fantasy
This was my most anticipated book of the year, and I loved Baker's Keeper of Night duology, so I was so sure I would love this book. I mean, FullMetal Alchemist meets Tang Dynasty China? Sign me up, right???
Spoiler alert: I did not enjoy this book. For me, it was a 2-star read. And that hurts my soul.
The parts I loved included the magic system (how the alchemy worked), Zilan herself was a compelling protagonist, her relationship with her cousins was great (I always love the way Kylie Lee Baker writes sibling relationships), and Li Hong was exactly the kind of soft, awkward boy I love. That was about it.
The plot, generally, goes like this: Zilan studies and takes the alchemy exam, in multiple stages, eventually traveling from her home city of Guangzhou to Chang'an (the imperial capital). She eventually achieves her dream of becoming a royal alchemist and gets embroiled in the intrigue surrounding the imperial family, including Empress Wu Zetian and Crown Prince Li Hong. It sounds fine on paper, yet the pacing occasionally felt weirdly off to me. Maybe it's because we all know that Zilan will pass the alchemy exam, otherwise there would be no story, so the exam itself starts to drag after a while? I'm not sure.
I found the side characters somewhat lacking in this book, which was a bit disappointing since there wasn't a single side character in the Keeper of Night duology that I thought was dull or two-dimensional. Zheng Sili existed to be the stock rival and also raging misogynist. The other royal alchemists were barely characters. Aside from Zilan, her cousins Wenshu and Yufei, Li Hong, and Wu Zetian, no one else was memorable.
My main problem was that this book felt very Game of Thrones-grimdark. The plot mostly consisted of terrible tragedy after terrible tragedy happening to Zilan. Ren from The Keeper of Night also experienced discrimination, yet she was able to cathartically beat the pulp out of most people who crossed her. Zilan isn't powerless, but the sheer number of horrible things happening to her—sexism, classism, discrimination for being biracial, her plans going terribly wrong—was overwhelming. And I can't do grimdark fantasy. It's too depressing and anxiety-inducing for me.
And now...for the historical part of this book.
There is an author's note saying that, because this is an alternate history Tang Dynasty China with alchemy, readers shouldn't expect complete accuracy. Fair. But...there were parts of this book that struck me as "not enough research" done rather than deliberately changing historical details to serve the story.
And I hate nitpicking the author for this. For authors who are first-generation Chinese American, or even second-gen immigrants who have close ties to China, I don't feel as bad, because y'all should know better. But from her author's note, I genuinely felt for Kylie Lee Baker. I strongly believe diaspora authors should have the freedom to explore our heritages. I don't believe there's ever a threshold we have to cross before we can start telling stories drawn from our ancestral homeland, because all that does is discourage diaspora authors from even doing research. I know exactly how it feels, because I felt—I feel—the exact same way.
But I've spent a lot of the past year reading xianxia novels from China. I've also done my own research for my novels. And my autistic, detail-oriented mind has a hard time not pointing these things out if I notice them.
1. The clothing. Characters are frequently mentioned as putting things "in their pockets." The thing is, traditional Chinese clothes do not have pockets; people stored things either in the front of their robes, in their sleeves, or in external pouches. A charitable reading is that maybe the author meant that characters were putting things in pockets sewn into their sleeves. But there was also a part in which someone helps Zilan "unbutton the back of her dress," and that is clearly not how traditional Chinese clothes work.
2. The floor. This is an extremely nitpicky detail, but there was a part where the imperial palace was described as having "porcelain tiles" on the floor, and I was like ??? The floors of Chinese houses were made of wood or stone.
3. Honorifics. Zilan was referred to as "Zilan xiǎojiě" by the prince (I can't recall off the top of my head if anyone else called her that). The thing is, "xiǎojiě" (小姐) is a modern Mandarin form of addressing young women. If you watch C-dramas or read xianxia novels, you'll notice that characters never call young women "xiǎojiě", but "gūniang" (姑娘) instead. I kind of wish the author had stuck to calling Zilan "Miss Zilan" instead to avoid this trap.
Also, Yufei should never address Wenshu as "Wenshu-gē" but only as "gēge." In Chinese, referring to someone as "[name]-gē" is what you would call an older male friend, not your actual brother. (If you have multiple older brothers, you would call them based on their order of birth. The oldest would be "gēge", the second would be "èrgē" ("second brother"), the third would be "sāngē" ("third brother"), etc.)
So...yeah. I may still give the sequel a try because I thought The Empress of Time was even better than The Keeper of Night, but right now, I'm just disappointed and sad.
