• ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu | ARC Review

    15th June 2021
    Cover of The Tangleroot Palace (Marjorie Liu)

    The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    The Tangleroot Palace contains six short stories (“Sympathy for the Bones,” “The Briar and the Rose,” “Call Her Savage,” “The Last Dignity of Man,” “Where the Heart Lives,” “After the Blood”) and one novella (“Tangleroot Palace”), all of which are fantasy with hints of horror and gorgeously written. At the end of each story, there is also brief commentary by Liu, providing some background and thematic connections between the stories.

    I adore the writing, which flowed beautifully, and I love how effortlessly detailed each sentence is. Fantasy short stories are extremely difficult to pull off, given the need to provide enough world building and plot within the limited word count, and Liu delivered not one but six satisfying stories.

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  • a banner art of the ghosts we keep from hear our voices book tours
    ARCs,  Blog Tour,  Book Reviews,  Bookish,  Fiction

    Blog Tour: The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver

    26th May 2021
    Cover of The Ghosts We Keep (Mason Deaver)

    The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver

    • Publisher: PUSH
    • Release Date: June 1, 2021
    • Genre: Young Adult
    • Page Count: 235 pages

    preorder links on author’s website! | content warnings on author’s website | author’s playlist on Spotify

    Hi, I am Hsinju (she/they/他), a queer Taiwanese book reviewer and blogger currently residing in Illinois. Today (May 26th, 2021) is the first day of Hear Our Voices Book Tours for Mason Deaver’s sophomore novel The Ghosts We Keep, a story about the nonbinary, gay 16-year-old Liam “Lee” Cooper (he/they) struggling with the death of their older brother Ethan.

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  • Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo [EN/ZH-TW]

    22nd March 2021
    Cover of Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Malinda Lo)

    Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, read by Emily Woo Zeller

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    AUDIOBOOK REVIEW IN EN & ZH-TW | 有聲書書評（中英對照）

    EN

    Content warning: racism, homophobia, manipulation, mention of miscarriage, alcohol (underage drinking)

    She couldn’t find the right words for this dammed-up feeling inside, as if she were denying herself something absolutely vital, and she didn’t know why.

    Last Night at the Telegraph Club is less about the romance between Lily and Kath but more about Lily trying to grasp her identity as a Chinese American lesbian in the 1950s.

    In the prologue, four years before the main story (1950), thirteen-year-old Lily Hu (胡麗麗) and her childhood best friend Shirley Lum attend Miss Chinatown Contest with their families. I’d say this one chapter is the summary of the entire book in one way or another as we see Lily becoming aware of skin and bodies and the interactions between her and Shirley.

    When Lily stumbles upon an ad for male impersonator Tommy Andrews’ performance at the Telegraph Club (1954), she is mesmerized, not quite understanding why. But she keeps the clip along with a few others in her copy of The Exploration of Space. All her dreams in one place, I think. As the new school year starts, there are only two girls left in Advanced Math—Lily herself and Kathleen Miller, who dreams of becoming a pilot. Their orbits never coincide until this very moment, and it makes all the difference.

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins | ARC Review

    4th January 2021
    Cover of The Wife Upstairs (Rachel Hawkins)

    The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    // tl;dr: very cishet & white (0 queer characters & 0 poc); messed up world of rich people and master manipulators with mysterious deaths

    Content warnings: on-page murder, mentions of drowning, blackmail, manipulation, forced captivity, infidelity, blood, alcohol abuse

    [background music: taylor swift’s no body, no crime]

    Everything is a sham and our seemingly lovable characters are actually master manipulators.

    It’s thrilling to read, and I couldn’t stop at all.

    Jane (23), who grew up in the foster care system until she aged out, walks dogs for the rich people in Thornfield Estates. When by chance she meets Edward “Eddie” Rochester (30s), a handsome recent widower who doesn’t entirely fit in with the rest of the neighborhood, she desperately wants him—him and the new life he could provide—because no one should ever know that Jane isn’t really Jane. But she isn’t the only one who has dark secrets from the past.

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  • Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Wilder Girls by Rory Power

    30th November 2020
    Cover of Wilder Girls (Rory Power)

    Wilder Girls by Rory Power

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    Content warnings: body horror, blood, bones, gore, guns, death of prominent/secondary/minor characters, poisoning

    Fear like a veil, and everything looks like something else, like danger, like hurt.

    Hetty

    This is one of the very few horror books I have ever read, and as someone who was haunted by the supposedly cute animation Monster House, horror was never my first choice of genre. But October calls for spooky reads, and since Wilder Girls is sapphic, the scare would hopefully be worth it. And I was pleasantly surprised. The gore and horror, not entirely revolting, were almost poetic.

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