Review: The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

Title: The Night Tiger
Author: Yangsze Choo
Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy
Release Date: February 2019
Rating: 5/5 Stars

Last year, I discovered my favorite under-the-radar read, The Ghost Bride, which came out in 2013 and told a spellbinding story of a beautiful girl in Malacca, Malaya who is betrothed to a dead man, and the trials she must endure to avoid becoming a ghost bride and creating the life she truly wants. I finished the book in something like two days and I immediately searched for other works by the author, but was extremely disappointed to find out it was her debut and, only, book. 

Fast forward to seeing The Night Tiger on NetGalley a few months ago. I immediately cheered, added it on Goodreads and requested it, crossing my fingers that I would get approved. Now, here I am having finished, again in about two days, and I'm awestruck by this author once more. Similarly to The Ghost Bride, Choo's latest work intertwines folklore, myth, and magic with the everyday trials of grief, feeling like one's fate is out of one's hands, and examining the gender inequality so present in society. Taking place in a different Malaya location, mostly in Ipoh and Batu Gajah, during the early 1930's, the setting is a beautifully bittersweet rendering of a country that sees the blend of so many rich cultures side by side with the careful grip of colonialism. 

In this setting, we meet Ji Lin, a smart, clever girl whose name corresponds with the virtue of wisdom, even if at times she feels she is always doing the wrong thing. Ji Lin loved academics and longed to study medicine, but her family forbid it due to her gender, and instead she is relegated to apprenticing at a dress shop and earning extra money as a "dance instructor" at a dance hall, the May Flower. In 1930's Malaya, working in a dance hall is seen as being very unbecoming and lowers her status, but Ji Lin enjoys the female friendship and it's the only way she can make enough money to help cover for her mother's secret gambling debts. Ji Lin grew up along side Shin, (or xin, the the virtue of faithfulness) her stepbrother, and they were always close, even sharing a birthday, until they finished school and Shin left home to pursue the career in medicine that Ji Lin so desperately wanted.

The Ghost Bride, 2013

Running parallel to Ji Lin's struggles, we meet Ren, who is a possibly ten or eleven year old trying to pass for "almost thirteen", an orphan whose twin brother died years ago. Ren, an extremely competent houseboy, is on a mission to fulfill the dying wish of his former master, which was to be buried with his missing finger so that he could pass into the afterlife as a complete person. Ren, clever and determined and honestly the highlight of this book, goes to work for a new master, a doctor like his previous one, in the town where Shin happens to be working as an orderly. 

In the background of the private struggles of each character is a possible man-eating tiger who may not be a man or a tiger completely, but some fearsome combination of both. Add to this a magical blend of ghosts, premonitions, and dreams that feel "like stories unfolding", and you can almost picture the perfection that is The Night Tiger. Drawing from folklore and mythology combined with beautifully evocative writing, I'm glad that Choo took her time with this manuscript because the finished work has turned out to be one of my favorite books (once again!) that will stick with me for a long time. I highly recommend preordering this book, and even though I received an e-ARC of it, I'll probably end up purchasing it as well. Not only is the cover gorgeous, but I feel this is the type of story I will want to read and re-read and get more out of it with each reading. If you love historical fiction, settings that are often not written about historically, and a blend of magic and ghost story, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Note: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.