It is 1898 in San
Francisco. When a sorcerer mainms Chinatown's Daoshi exorcist, only his
daughter Li-lin can protect the immigrant community. With a peachwood
sword and a sarcastic talking eyeball to help her, Li-lin must confront
evil spirits, gangsters, and soulstealers before the sorcerer summons an
ancient evil that could burn Chinatown to the ground.Full of creepy Asian monsters and authentic Chinese rituals, this critically acclaimed urban fantasy also tells the story of a young immigrant trying to find her place. In a Chinatown torn between tradition and modernity, one woman might be the key to holding everything together.
Comment: This was another gift I got for my birthday last month. It was a huge surprise because never did I imagine I would be given something in this genre (UF), considering I've turned my attentions away from most UFs and PNRs unless they have been in the pile for ages.
It was my friend H, from the buddy reads, who gave it to me for being different. I ended up liking the elements but not the execution that much.
In this book we have the story of Li-lin, a special young woman with the ability to see ghosts and who sees herself in a very tricky situation after an old friend of her dead husband plays a trick on her and she gets stuck in the ghost realm. She feels despaired until the ghost of one of her father's eyes rescues her and helps her get back to her physical body.
Once back, she starts planning a way to avenge the sacrifice her father did for her - if his eye has a ghost is because he had it removed in his physical body - at the same time she decides to protect her Chinatown of an evil wizard who wants to let a dangerous ghost destroy everything in his path...
I hope I got the above correctly. This story was way too weird for me to fully grasp what was happening. I do applaud the fact the author loves Asian cultures and myths and decided to incorporate them into this novel but I don't know if my lack of comprehension of some things and empathy towards what was happening was due to the distance between myself and my (very poor) knowledge of the subject or the writing style itself.
The plot was very action centered as opposed to character's development. I don't think I got to know who Li-lin was besides a good person and someone who tried to comply with her traditional values even among a dire situation that required thinking outside the box.
Each chapter had her facing adversity, ghosts, enemies, problems, complications from other character's actions... this has certainly made for a lively story, always something on the move, always something happening, but it made it more complicated to me to care about the characters, since we had so much superficial elements on them.
Thinking on this, I also started thinking the way the story happens might have had something to do with my lack of connection with the heroine or those she was in contact with. It's almost as if what matters is not Li-lin but her actions, her task, her movements. I know this can be common in UFs or certain fantasies, where the focus is on the amazing settings and rules of that world. However, that might be why I don't always enjoy these types of books, I do like to care about the characters and why they act a certain way, why some things matter to them... I think Li-lin was not as captivating to read about, nevertheless her personality and likeable attitudes.
There's a lot of cultural content about Asian myths and behavior rules of Asian cultures. I don't think the historical setting (late 1890s) was as obvious, though. The mix of beliefs and actions could be happening right now, apart from some descriptions we have, such was the focus on the paranormal elements.
I think the author was very successful in organizing the things he wanted to include and exploit and some were, in fact, quite interesting to learn and know more about.
However, it is said at the end, in a note, the author hopes this makes people more interested in know even more, or to look for information on these things. I admit I don't really feel like it because the book was so rich, too detailed and didn't allow time for me to just enjoy the character's personalities and lives, I feel lost among the type of content I should look for.
There were a couple of elements I liked. For instance, Li-lin's feelings regarding her late husband made her look more real, more human than her paranormal abilities made her look like. I liked her friendship with her father's eye ghost. I liked she was a total super heroine in some of the things she managed to accomplish and all the martial arts moves she knew how to perform.
I just feel sad I didn't get more on her emotions, on what the future would be like for her except more work, more chores, more (mainly) incredible things she would do.
Between my difficulty to follow some sequences and the lack of connection with the heroine and her experiences, perhaps I failed to really grasp the intent of this book. I liked some things, struggled with others, this ended up being a bit average to me.
Grade: 6/10
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