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.

Review: The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

Title: The Belles

Author: Dhonielle Clayton

Genre: Fantasy/Young Adult

Release Date: February 2018

Rating: 5/5 stars

The Belles is a rich, engrossing fantasy story set in a French-inspired nation called Orléans, where Beauty is a goddess to be worshipped and blessed beings known as the Belles bestow her beauty amongst the rest of society. In the creation myth of this world, humans were cursed after Beauty was accused of caring for them too much, and they were turned into the Gris, with gray skin and devoid of traditional marks of beauty. The story follows Camellia, who is just graduating from her Belle upbringing to begin working to make people beautiful. Camellia is a sort of over-achiever, and longs to be the favorite of the royal family and be stationed as the official palace Belle. However, she finds that life at court is not what she thought it would be, and she's faced with choosing between following the strict rules of society and being an agreeable Belle, or finding what she truly believes in and standing up for herself.

How I pictured the world, except with less white people

What I loved about this book was definitely the beautifully imagined world that Dhonielle Clayton created. Every detail is richly described, and I was immediately transported into the world. The world-building was excellent, and the magic system, known as the Belle's arcana, was unique and well-done. The Belles is not a particularly short book, but it's highly addictive and definitely draws the reader in with its' beautifully rendered world, high-stakes drama, and strong, kind heroine, Camellia, as well as the supportive side characters such as her sister Belles and her servant, Bree. There are a lot of complicated women in this story, which makes it even more interesting. At times I thought that the villain was a little much (think Marie Antoinette meets Joffrey from Game of Thrones), but her actions didn't hinder the storytelling at all. Overall, an excellent start to the series and I can't wait to see how these characters evolve as the story continues!

Note: I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

Title: The Bear and the Nightingale
Author: Katherine Arden
Genre: Historical/Fantasy
Release Date: January 2017
Rating: 5/5 Stars 

One of my favorite areas of study when working on my history undergrad was medieval Russia. Russia has a medieval period so unlike the rest of Europe, having been settled largely by Scandinavian invaders who took over the land from the native Slavic population. Meanwhile, influences from the Byzantine Empire and the Mongols permeate throughout medieval Russian culture. Plus, the political system of sons inheriting the title of Grand Prince, and the super complicated familial murders that occurred because of this system, make it a fascinating area of study. Russian folklore, meanwhile, is full of dark, creepy creatures that are at home in the wintery landscape. Debut novel The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden manages to capture this world, wavering between the real and the unreal, as well as creating memorable, likeable characters and a compelling plotline.

Taking place during the reign of Ivan II, the Fair (1353 - 1359) and his subsequent death, this story follows the lives of a lord’s family living on a remote estate surrounded by forest. Pyotr, the patriarch of the family, married Marina, a half sister of Ivan II, whose mother was a mysterious but beautiful child of the woods. They have a healthy brood of children (three sons and a girl) when the youngest member of the family, Vasilisa, or Vasya, is born. Marina longs for a magical daughter to live in her mother’s image, and claims that Vasya is that promised daughter. Pyotr would prefer to have his wife rather than a magical daughter, but he’s a good father and dedicated to his family so he supports Marina’s decision to have this baby even if it risks her life. From there, Arden weaves a spellbinding tale following Vasya throughout her girlhood into womanhood, as her connection with the magic of the land grows alongside the religious fervor building in the nearby village.

Much of the magic throughout the book will be familiar to readers of folklore and fairy tales, but you may encounter new words for some of these supernatural creatures. There are rusalkas, forest guardian spirits, vampires, and a cast of spirits of the hearth that guard homes and stables. These creatures live in an invisible plane that most mortals cannot see, unless you are born with the sign. Surprise, surprise, our heroine possesses the sight, but she’s not the only one, and not all possessors of this gift view it as a positive power. The magic in Vasya’s world feels very real, making this book border on fantasy and magical realism in my reading. The idea of magic in the medieval world is a fascinating one; most believed it to be real, an explanation for what could not be seen, and a companion to the answers provided by Christianity.

Throughout the book, we grow up with Vasya as she faces different challenges, and she is supported by her brother Alyosha, and the magical spirits that she defends. Since Vasya is a girl throughout most of the book, I've seen some call this Young Adult but I don't think it really falls into that category at all. I don’t want to explain too much about the plot in order to avoid spoilers, but the overall feeling this book gave me was hands-down five stars. The writing casts a spell over the reader, compelling you to keep turning the pages in order to stay in this beautifully rendered world. When I came to the end of the book, I almost didn’t have any words and it took me a little while to formulate my review. I think that this would appeal to readers of magical realism works, like The Night Circus, as well as historical fiction lovers. It also reminded me a bit of The Book of Speculation, which also features Eastern European folklore, but I thought that this book executed its plot much better. A wonderful new release to start of 2017!

Review: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Title: Rebel of the Sands

Author: Alwyn Hamilton

Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: October 2015

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Rebel of the Sands follows the story of Amani, a girl gunslinger in a remote desert town. Amani dreams of fleeing her oppressive family and doing something more with her life. While competing in a gun shooting competition with the hopes to win enough money to leave her small town of Dustwalk behind, she meets a mysterious foreigner named Jin, who draws her into an adventure that's bigger and more complex that she could have dreamed. This book has been widely reviewed and is known for being a mix of a classic Western and a Middle Eastern-inspired fantasy, with a mix of Wild West gunslinging and train robbing, plus djinni and other magical desert creatures.

This book was hard for me to determine a rating for, as there were aspects of it that I loved and other aspects that really lost me. Overall, I enjoyed Amani as a character. She was flawed and made mistakes, but learned from them. She was often unsure and had to learn how to survive in the new world that Jin introduced her to rather than being preternaturally gifted right away. Plus, her sassy interactions and dialog, especially with Jin, were a highlight of her character. A few of the side characters, who appear later in the story, are also well-drawn and easy to connect with. I also thought that the setting was well-described and I could see how this story could be seen as immersive, if only it was better executed.

This unique setting was one of the aspects of the book that I struggled with. The story starts as a spaghetti Western, turns into a 1,001 Nights fantasy, then into a political military uprising. It was like the author couldn't decide which story to tell so they just included everything. The blend is unique, but not entirely believable. Miraji, the imagined country where the story takes place, reads like a mix of medieval Islamic culture and occupied India. Characters and places have a blend of Arabic and Persian names, there are calls to prayer and prayer rugs, a dash but then there are also gun factories and I swear Amani is wearing a cowboy hat in the beginning of the book. The characters aren't Muslim (there aren't any named religions as far as I can tell), but there are elements of Islamic culture that exist within the world. It just felt a bit off to me, and I had trouble buying into this kind of world.

The world was clearly inspired by reality and imbued with magic, which I think would have worked fine if this story could just decide what it wanted to be. Instead, it felt like two separate worlds mashed together, with well-written characters unfortunately drawn into it. This may be because it's a debut and this lack of cohesiveness will improve throughout the series. I'm hoping that the world building matures, because overall the writing is good and the characters are great; if so, I could see subsequent books being four or even five star reads.