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The Hungry Ghosts
A novel for those who loved Behind the Scenes at the Museum, The Poisonwood Bible and The Lovely Bones.
Raped then murdered in Japanese occupied Hong Kong, 1942, Lin Shui’s ‘Hungry Ghost’ clings tenaciously to life. Holing up in a hospital morgue, destined to become a school, just in time she finds a host off whom to feed. It is 12-year-old Alice Safford, the deeply-troubled daughter of a leading figure in government. The parasitic ghost follows her to her home on the Peak. There, the lethal mix of the two, embroiled in the family’s web of dark secrets and desperate lies, unleashes chaos. All this unfolds against a background of colonial unrest, riots, extremes of weather and the countdown to the return of the colony to China. As successive tragedies engulf Alice, her ghostly entourage swells alarmingly. She flees to England, then France, in a bid to escape the past, only to find her portable ‘Hungry Ghosts’ have accompanied her. It seems the peace she longs for is to prove far more elusive that she could ever have imagined.
The Hungy Ghosts is a remarkable tour-de-force of the imagination, full of instantly memorable characters whose lives intermesh and boil over in a cauldron of domestic mayhem, unleashing unworldly spirits into the troubled air.
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
August 31, 2022
I am ashamed to say that I did not finish. I was drawn to the book by the premise: a young Chinese girl's ghost finds a host in a young American girl and wreaks havoc on her prim and proper family.
But Oh. My. God. I could not stand the writing style. Berry describes every single minute detail of every scene with a painstakingly overpopulated vocabulary. Every single chapter is from a different perspective in a way that does not lend to the plot or feel of the narrative. This is littered with cliche: a young girl from a wealthy family who despise her, she's the odd one out, unloved and forgotten. A Sally Rooney prototype without the depth.
Sorry to be so scathing and maybe I should have given it a better chance, I feel cruel writing this but it just wasn't for me. I was so excited by the first few pages and by the perspective of the young murdered girl - it was unusual and magnificent and then a thousand different voices entered the picture and she was lost.
But Oh. My. God. I could not stand the writing style. Berry describes every single minute detail of every scene with a painstakingly overpopulated vocabulary. Every single chapter is from a different perspective in a way that does not lend to the plot or feel of the narrative. This is littered with cliche: a young girl from a wealthy family who despise her, she's the odd one out, unloved and forgotten. A Sally Rooney prototype without the depth.
Sorry to be so scathing and maybe I should have given it a better chance, I feel cruel writing this but it just wasn't for me. I was so excited by the first few pages and by the perspective of the young murdered girl - it was unusual and magnificent and then a thousand different voices entered the picture and she was lost.
June 6, 2009
In short I found this book rather cold, disjointed and pointless. The only thing that Berry had going for her with this novel was her ability to write scenes with an incredible amount of detail. To a fault even.
I found some of the chapters surplus to requirements, especially the siblings- Jillian, Nicola and Harry. The descriptive droned on for far too long...almost to the point that I could skim ahead 2-3 pages at a time and have missed nothing. Or it would have a different effect in that she spent so long putting paragraphs of detail in between dialogue that the reader forgot the topic being discussed in the first place. It also became repetitive and forced in some areas making me feel like I had no choice but to put the book down for an hour before I could continue with it. If it wasn't the excessive descriptions, then it was the superfluous scenes between characters that made me jump ahead; all I had to do was look for dialogue to get the story moving along again.
Alice's story, if you could even say the novel was about her, barely existed. Berry, in having the family 'forget' her and push her to one side, she made the reader forget her too. Due to this, I couldn't even find a reason for the story coming into existence other than to show off Berry's great ability to drone on with adjectives.
Berry's style relates closely to Ian McEwan, in my opinion, so if you enjoy his novels, then you will enjoy Berry's debut novel.
I found some of the chapters surplus to requirements, especially the siblings- Jillian, Nicola and Harry. The descriptive droned on for far too long...almost to the point that I could skim ahead 2-3 pages at a time and have missed nothing. Or it would have a different effect in that she spent so long putting paragraphs of detail in between dialogue that the reader forgot the topic being discussed in the first place. It also became repetitive and forced in some areas making me feel like I had no choice but to put the book down for an hour before I could continue with it. If it wasn't the excessive descriptions, then it was the superfluous scenes between characters that made me jump ahead; all I had to do was look for dialogue to get the story moving along again.
Alice's story, if you could even say the novel was about her, barely existed. Berry, in having the family 'forget' her and push her to one side, she made the reader forget her too. Due to this, I couldn't even find a reason for the story coming into existence other than to show off Berry's great ability to drone on with adjectives.
Berry's style relates closely to Ian McEwan, in my opinion, so if you enjoy his novels, then you will enjoy Berry's debut novel.
December 14, 2013
By page 100, this slow motion train wreck of a book had me convinced it was one of the worst abuses of vanity publishing I've had the misfortune to read. And yet it has many gushingly favorable reviews and has picked up a couple of prizes. I forced myself through to it's dreary-drawn out conclusion, if only to glimpse what other people might possibly appreciate in this.
To be kind, there is a potentially interesting story about a dysfunctional family hiding somewhere in this book. Unfortunately the author made some fatal choices for the narrative style which doomed this text from the start. She was obviously aiming for something close to Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible", which uses multiple first person narrators to tell the story. Even a great writer like Kingsolver had to resort to some clever stylistic tricks to keep her five narrative voices distinct, believable and interesting. Berry - who is way less talented, tries to pull off about a dozen narrators, and they all end up sounding the same, using the same vocabulary, syntax and metaphors. Mum, dad. all the kids, the neighbors, the help...all use the same voice. I could forgive this in the Ghost Dog, but my credulity wouldn't stretch to a 1940's Chinese fisherman's dead daughter.
Berry tries to "fix" this by giving everyone their own special character flaw. This flaw has to be mentioned once per paragraph so we know who's chapter we are in. Mother is lucky because she gets two flaws- she drinks, and she doesn't like "The Help". I started to count the drinks in hand but the count passed an episode of "Mad Men". Fat-boy Harry's scenes were even more silly. Gluttony was making it to every sentence for a while. Worse still, Berry often completely forgets she's meant to be "speaking in character", and there will be a flurry of "literary" purple prose from the mouth of an omniscient narrator. How can these sorts of mistakes can get passed an editor. Maybe they'd joined mum for a few too many scotches.
Even Berry's favorable critics admit that the "ghost" part of her story doesn't work. All the ghost does is spill a bit of milk. There are no scenes which demonstrate the growing relationship between Alice and her un-dead "friend". There are no scenes which demonstrate how the ghost and Alice are upsetting the family balance. There is no analysis about why things are going wrong - in the family - or for that matter in the colony of Hong Kong. This text dwells on resentful and petty superficiality.
It does not work in any way as a novel, but I can understand it's context if it is some form of art therapy.
There are a handful of passages that leap off the page, namely the truly nasty ones. The rapes, the abortion, the alcoholic mental breakdown. There is something emotional and raw and believable about these passages. Then there is the inner back cover author bio, which creepily mirrors the action in the "story". I have a very uneasy feeling that the lines between fiction, biography, and auto-biography are very fuzzy in this book. The irrelevant ghost makes sense if she is a tack on - allowing a traumatized author to dish some family dirt in the 'guise of a supernatural fiction. The book starts to make sense if I view it through that lens - the writer is describing scenes, but she isn't able to understand why these things happened - so most of the pieces don't fit. Even the bonkers multi-voiced narrator makes sense if Anne Berry is role-playing her family members in a trauma therapy session to exorcise the ghosts of her childhood. If I'm correct in reading this into the text- I really hope Anne Berry found some inner peace putting this out there.
Then she won't need to write another one!
To be kind, there is a potentially interesting story about a dysfunctional family hiding somewhere in this book. Unfortunately the author made some fatal choices for the narrative style which doomed this text from the start. She was obviously aiming for something close to Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible", which uses multiple first person narrators to tell the story. Even a great writer like Kingsolver had to resort to some clever stylistic tricks to keep her five narrative voices distinct, believable and interesting. Berry - who is way less talented, tries to pull off about a dozen narrators, and they all end up sounding the same, using the same vocabulary, syntax and metaphors. Mum, dad. all the kids, the neighbors, the help...all use the same voice. I could forgive this in the Ghost Dog, but my credulity wouldn't stretch to a 1940's Chinese fisherman's dead daughter.
Berry tries to "fix" this by giving everyone their own special character flaw. This flaw has to be mentioned once per paragraph so we know who's chapter we are in. Mother is lucky because she gets two flaws- she drinks, and she doesn't like "The Help". I started to count the drinks in hand but the count passed an episode of "Mad Men". Fat-boy Harry's scenes were even more silly. Gluttony was making it to every sentence for a while. Worse still, Berry often completely forgets she's meant to be "speaking in character", and there will be a flurry of "literary" purple prose from the mouth of an omniscient narrator. How can these sorts of mistakes can get passed an editor. Maybe they'd joined mum for a few too many scotches.
Even Berry's favorable critics admit that the "ghost" part of her story doesn't work. All the ghost does is spill a bit of milk. There are no scenes which demonstrate the growing relationship between Alice and her un-dead "friend". There are no scenes which demonstrate how the ghost and Alice are upsetting the family balance. There is no analysis about why things are going wrong - in the family - or for that matter in the colony of Hong Kong. This text dwells on resentful and petty superficiality.
It does not work in any way as a novel, but I can understand it's context if it is some form of art therapy.
There are a handful of passages that leap off the page, namely the truly nasty ones. The rapes, the abortion, the alcoholic mental breakdown. There is something emotional and raw and believable about these passages. Then there is the inner back cover author bio, which creepily mirrors the action in the "story". I have a very uneasy feeling that the lines between fiction, biography, and auto-biography are very fuzzy in this book. The irrelevant ghost makes sense if she is a tack on - allowing a traumatized author to dish some family dirt in the 'guise of a supernatural fiction. The book starts to make sense if I view it through that lens - the writer is describing scenes, but she isn't able to understand why these things happened - so most of the pieces don't fit. Even the bonkers multi-voiced narrator makes sense if Anne Berry is role-playing her family members in a trauma therapy session to exorcise the ghosts of her childhood. If I'm correct in reading this into the text- I really hope Anne Berry found some inner peace putting this out there.
Then she won't need to write another one!
April 24, 2014
This book was utterly horrible. I will give credit to the author for being skilled in the use of the english language, for having a firm grasp of painting a scene, and having quite believable personalities for each character, but other than that this book was a morbid, disappointing, pointless, and honestly depressing as hell. I disliked almost every character for being such horrible human beings, and i also felt that there was no glimmer of happiness, or positivity EVER in the entire story. I finished it only to see if the author at least granted someone a happy ending and was not shocked when she didn't. The ghosts weren't even involved, just annoying followers of the rest of the living characters.
Do not read.
Do not read.
November 30, 2015
I can understand why some reviews have described this novel as depressing and negative. However, it is so much more than that, and so unfair to simply label a book bleak because it tackles very difficult subjects such as murder. Bear with this book. It is stunning. So well written. There is great beauty and humour within too. In parts, the suffering of Alice Safford is so disturbing, it is painful to observe. She is a gentle and vulnerable girl, with a very sensitive and beautiful soul, and following her receiving more and more emotional abuse and neglect from her disturbed and dysfunctional family, with an almost passive acceptance, was sometimes difficult and agonising to read.
Set in Hong Kong, during the 60's, Alice lives in a huge apartment in an affluent area, with her alcoholic mother, high ranking British diplomat father, 2 elder sisters, a younger brother and her beloved dog, Bear.
It was as though she believed she deserved to be treated appallingly. At times, it felt as though I were standing next to Alice, watching someone hurting her, and doing nothing. It was so hard to be a disassociated reader, and to be helpless to help her; I desperately wanted to leap into the novel, bundle her up and take her far away from her toxic family. It sometimes felt painful to be following this lost woman, in so much spiritual pain, limping through life with no direction, anchor or support.
There were several characters in the novel who came to her aid, and rescued her at crucial times. But Alice's profound damage ran so deep, I don't think she ever understood that she was as severely emotionally wounded as she was. Or indeed, that she had been treated appallingly by her family. I was angry that she would forgive and continue to love her family after all they had done to her. She directed her pain inwards, towards herself, such is often the way with kind, decent, sensitive people. This was in stark contrast to her bullying, vile sisters and evil mother, who lashed out when they felt any flicker of emotion.
At the heart of this book, lies the disturbing theme of a mother's jealousy of her own daughter. And that is the true source, the trigger and unending cause of Alice's suffering. The acceptance of the rest of the family that her mother can treat Alice as she likes, in my mind, makes the rest of the family every bit as guilty as the vindictive mother.
When my heart wasn't pounding with anger, and my face red with rage and concern for Alice, I loved the descriptions about Hong Kong, the political and cultural changes, and its rich and unique history.
This book moved me passionately, and resonated deeply within me. It disturbed me and touched so many nerves, which was excruciatingly uncomfortable and unwanted, and was at times a very painful read. Yet, the very fact that people such as Anne Berry can write in such a way that skilfully manages to describe and understand such raw, almost indescribable and destructive and damaging pain, is almost therapeutic and strangely soothing. It hears the Alices of the world, tells them that they are heard, that they matter, and that they are not responsible or to blame for the cruelty of others.
Set in Hong Kong, during the 60's, Alice lives in a huge apartment in an affluent area, with her alcoholic mother, high ranking British diplomat father, 2 elder sisters, a younger brother and her beloved dog, Bear.
It was as though she believed she deserved to be treated appallingly. At times, it felt as though I were standing next to Alice, watching someone hurting her, and doing nothing. It was so hard to be a disassociated reader, and to be helpless to help her; I desperately wanted to leap into the novel, bundle her up and take her far away from her toxic family. It sometimes felt painful to be following this lost woman, in so much spiritual pain, limping through life with no direction, anchor or support.
There were several characters in the novel who came to her aid, and rescued her at crucial times. But Alice's profound damage ran so deep, I don't think she ever understood that she was as severely emotionally wounded as she was. Or indeed, that she had been treated appallingly by her family. I was angry that she would forgive and continue to love her family after all they had done to her. She directed her pain inwards, towards herself, such is often the way with kind, decent, sensitive people. This was in stark contrast to her bullying, vile sisters and evil mother, who lashed out when they felt any flicker of emotion.
At the heart of this book, lies the disturbing theme of a mother's jealousy of her own daughter. And that is the true source, the trigger and unending cause of Alice's suffering. The acceptance of the rest of the family that her mother can treat Alice as she likes, in my mind, makes the rest of the family every bit as guilty as the vindictive mother.
When my heart wasn't pounding with anger, and my face red with rage and concern for Alice, I loved the descriptions about Hong Kong, the political and cultural changes, and its rich and unique history.
This book moved me passionately, and resonated deeply within me. It disturbed me and touched so many nerves, which was excruciatingly uncomfortable and unwanted, and was at times a very painful read. Yet, the very fact that people such as Anne Berry can write in such a way that skilfully manages to describe and understand such raw, almost indescribable and destructive and damaging pain, is almost therapeutic and strangely soothing. It hears the Alices of the world, tells them that they are heard, that they matter, and that they are not responsible or to blame for the cruelty of others.
June 3, 2009
I really enjoyed this book. It follows the story of a British family, living in Hong Kong during the time when the British ruled. In particular, it follows the story of Alice - the unwanted daughter - who is deeply troubled and becomes the host for the ghost of a Chinese girl murdered by the Japanese. We follow her as she tries to find her place in the world, whilst carrying around the 'ghosts' of the past.
The title would lead you to believe that this is a ghost story. It is, but not in the traditional sense. Instead, it is much more than that. There is a deeper meaning behind this book, which I can't really go into without giving the plot away, however I can say that it focuses on the consequences of our actions.
The writing flows and the description is vivid. The different viewpoints add depth and excellent characterisation to the story. They also help to keep the book interesting and the plot moves along at a good speed.
The final few pages, for me, really hit home. The final paragraph was one that will stay with me and it gave a different outlook on the whole book.
A great debut novel! Looking forward to reading more from this author.
The title would lead you to believe that this is a ghost story. It is, but not in the traditional sense. Instead, it is much more than that. There is a deeper meaning behind this book, which I can't really go into without giving the plot away, however I can say that it focuses on the consequences of our actions.
The writing flows and the description is vivid. The different viewpoints add depth and excellent characterisation to the story. They also help to keep the book interesting and the plot moves along at a good speed.
The final few pages, for me, really hit home. The final paragraph was one that will stay with me and it gave a different outlook on the whole book.
A great debut novel! Looking forward to reading more from this author.
September 23, 2017
A fascinating read . the separate life that Alice had to her siblings was so isolating and beautifully told by Anne Berry.
I really disliked the spiteful Jillian , liked Nicola but felt I never really got to know her brother Harry as a character. Myrtle like her daughter Jillian was harsh towards Alice in a manner that I felt was undeserving, but I know that her father Ralph loved her dearly.
I think the most saddest part of the story was Alice visiting her dads grave to find her name left off, sad , poignant and beyond unfeeling behaviour by her mother and rest of the family.
I really disliked the spiteful Jillian , liked Nicola but felt I never really got to know her brother Harry as a character. Myrtle like her daughter Jillian was harsh towards Alice in a manner that I felt was undeserving, but I know that her father Ralph loved her dearly.
I think the most saddest part of the story was Alice visiting her dads grave to find her name left off, sad , poignant and beyond unfeeling behaviour by her mother and rest of the family.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 27, 2012
I didn’t think I would enjoy this book as ghost stories are not high on my list of entertainment. However the story is so well written I couldn’t put it down. I think Anne Berry used the ghosts to best portray the demons Alice carried around in her head due to her unhappy childhood. Ghost play an integral part in Chinese culture and the story is set in Hong Kong in the 1960s though to handing over to China in 1997 and beyond.
Alice’s father had a high powered job for the British government in Hong Kong and had little time to be a hands on father. Alice’s mother, best described as a ‘social climber’, lacked any maternal instinct but felt it her duty to have a son to continue their familial line. When at her third attempt she delivered Alice, her third daughter, she was determined to hate her from the outset and Alice became quite unruly. She was, however, loved by her father, which fueled further jealousy from her mother, sisters and brother, (who finally arrived at their fourth attempt!) Alice’s mother became even more vindictive towards Alice, wanting nothing more than to get rid of her by sending her away to boarding school, which was something her father would not allow.
In my opinion, the ghosts that inhabit Alice from the early years of her life through to middle age, was an interesting, if a somewhat ‘quirky’ way of depicting the demons in her head, cleverly done, and brilliantly written.
Alice’s father had a high powered job for the British government in Hong Kong and had little time to be a hands on father. Alice’s mother, best described as a ‘social climber’, lacked any maternal instinct but felt it her duty to have a son to continue their familial line. When at her third attempt she delivered Alice, her third daughter, she was determined to hate her from the outset and Alice became quite unruly. She was, however, loved by her father, which fueled further jealousy from her mother, sisters and brother, (who finally arrived at their fourth attempt!) Alice’s mother became even more vindictive towards Alice, wanting nothing more than to get rid of her by sending her away to boarding school, which was something her father would not allow.
In my opinion, the ghosts that inhabit Alice from the early years of her life through to middle age, was an interesting, if a somewhat ‘quirky’ way of depicting the demons in her head, cleverly done, and brilliantly written.
November 30, 2014
The extraordinary story of two girls, Alice, youngest daughter of a member of the colonial Hong Kong British government and the wife who only wanted to provide her husband with her son, and the girl who haunts her, the ghost of Lin Shui, a young virgin raped and murdered by a Japanese occupying solider during World War II 20 years earlier. Alice is a ghost to her own family, unwanted by her mother, adored by her father, largely absent and unable to protect her from the increasing hostilities of her sisters and mother, and held accountable for the action of Lin who is drawn to Alice's life force and loneliness and moves and destroys objects around her as a misplaced act of affection. As colonial rule in Hong Kong is rent asunder by civil unrest and Alice and her family are exiled to England, a country that has never been home to them, Alice's entourage is swollen by further restless spirits. Berry handles the entire narrative beautifully, even Alice's monstrous mother is comprehendable in her own pain and reasons for the mental and physical torture she deals out to Alice, an amazing book of aching sadness.
July 13, 2024
This is the most inconsistent book I’ve ever read - the author doesn’t seem to know her main characters at all and a lot of the emotions that drive the plot in this book come out of nowhere and are always contradicting. Nothing that the characters think seems plausible or makes any sense. The result is the mythology this book tries to centre around comes across as corny (massive insult to the Chinese tradition of the Yulan “hungry ghosts” festival)
A lot of the events that happen are incredibly morbid and disturbing for no reason. It feels like the author has just thrown in a lot of terrible things for the sake of making the book depressing to read. This book is just a chain of upsetting events with little build up to the events happening- it’s just incredibly random and dark.
The only reason I didn’t give this book 1 star is because even though the book is annoyingly repetitive, I didn’t mind the writing style and there were a lot of vivid descriptions which made the book readable despite everything else.
A lot of the events that happen are incredibly morbid and disturbing for no reason. It feels like the author has just thrown in a lot of terrible things for the sake of making the book depressing to read. This book is just a chain of upsetting events with little build up to the events happening- it’s just incredibly random and dark.
The only reason I didn’t give this book 1 star is because even though the book is annoyingly repetitive, I didn’t mind the writing style and there were a lot of vivid descriptions which made the book readable despite everything else.
July 27, 2011
Really struggling with this one. Not enjoying it at all, it's taking me ages to finish it. It started off quite well for me, with the story of the Chinese girl and the mystery kicking off at the funeral all in the first few pages but afterwards it all became rather disjointed and haphazard. Some chapters and even characters added very little to the story. In some places, the descriptives are just far too long and unnecessary leaving me to skip whole paragraphs at some points or completely lose track of what was happening further in the chapter. Very near finished the book, desperate to end it and move on to something else on my list, but at the awkward stage where I just can't force myself to pick up the book and get reading.
November 13, 2016
Wow this book. Such crushing loneliness for an entire lifetime. Such undisguised contempt from most of the people meant to love her the most. Somehow the moments of overt tragedy, the graphically violent events that scarred her soul, are less impactful than the long lonely slog through a world that never understood or accepted her. Even the most painful wounds can heal, with time and love and support. But how do you heal from a relentless onslaught of rejection and dismissal? I suppose it ended on a hopeful note. A dark, painful lifetime culminating in a quiet, contented life. But still always alone. And in the end, more alone than ever before.
March 19, 2021
Generated a lot of discussion at the book group. We felt there was a lot of unnecessary events in the book that were added for shock value perhaps, rather than moving the story along. If it had been written as a novel about a dysfunctional family without the 'ghosts' it might have been improved. If it was supposed to be a novel to generate discussion it worked; was it about mental illness? addiction? who knows but it did raise questions. However, despite the excellent discussion, it was really not good. It took a few false starts to get reading, and I only persevered because it was for our book group. It all seemed rather pointless.
August 23, 2019
this book was long and boring.
i dont know what to say about it and about how many stars to give it.
it took me many days to read it.
it is about a girl called lin shui who is a young chinese girl who is the daughter of a fisher man.
they live on the island of hong kong.
the year is 1942. she is brutally raped and then is murdered.
then comes the story of alice safford.
his is based in hong kong.
who is born after two sisters.
she bothers her parents a lot.
their parents want to have a son and after trying they finally have a son.
her father is ralph , moher is myrtle and her shong konisters include nicola and gillian.
the son is called harry.
alice then gets pregnant.
she is to be sent to boarding school to england.
there are some hungry ghosts who have some unfinished business.
she then goes to france where she makes a friend and then starts living in paris.
she then gets married to a person called carl napier but the marriage ends.
her parents move to england.
then she watches hong kong given to china in 1997 by the british.
she imagines her parents over there.
then she finally decides to meet her siblings and parents.
she had been missing for all these years.
she meets her family after 30 years.
she meets with nicola , jillian and harry who tell her her father is dead.
she goes to her fathers grave and sees it.
she tells her siblings about how she loved it is paris,france and how she lived over there.
she had written three letters to her parents in hong kong.
the story ends over here!.
i dont know what to say about it and about how many stars to give it.
it took me many days to read it.
it is about a girl called lin shui who is a young chinese girl who is the daughter of a fisher man.
they live on the island of hong kong.
the year is 1942. she is brutally raped and then is murdered.
then comes the story of alice safford.
his is based in hong kong.
who is born after two sisters.
she bothers her parents a lot.
their parents want to have a son and after trying they finally have a son.
her father is ralph , moher is myrtle and her shong konisters include nicola and gillian.
the son is called harry.
alice then gets pregnant.
she is to be sent to boarding school to england.
there are some hungry ghosts who have some unfinished business.
she then goes to france where she makes a friend and then starts living in paris.
she then gets married to a person called carl napier but the marriage ends.
her parents move to england.
then she watches hong kong given to china in 1997 by the british.
she imagines her parents over there.
then she finally decides to meet her siblings and parents.
she had been missing for all these years.
she meets her family after 30 years.
she meets with nicola , jillian and harry who tell her her father is dead.
she goes to her fathers grave and sees it.
she tells her siblings about how she loved it is paris,france and how she lived over there.
she had written three letters to her parents in hong kong.
the story ends over here!.
October 11, 2012
I can honestly say that I was surprised at how depressed I became after reading this book. I was not expecting it to be quite so dramatic and damn heart breaking. I could not believe how self-absorbed and selfish Alice's entire family was, well except her father Ralph and possibly her brother Harry. How they could never see her turmoil and how she never saw their devious plans. The mother... man she was the worst. Pure evil.
I think I only kept reading hoping, praying that poor Alice would find solace that something positive would happen to her. I sometimes found myself hoping that she would die just to make the pain go away. Terrible I know.
I will say that it made me respect and love my family so much more and to be honest that was the only reason I gave it 2 stars and not one.
The writing was very descriptive and detailed and flowed wonderfully but the storyline... not for me.
I think I only kept reading hoping, praying that poor Alice would find solace that something positive would happen to her. I sometimes found myself hoping that she would die just to make the pain go away. Terrible I know.
I will say that it made me respect and love my family so much more and to be honest that was the only reason I gave it 2 stars and not one.
The writing was very descriptive and detailed and flowed wonderfully but the storyline... not for me.
February 17, 2021
Liked this more than I expected as it took me a long time to get started on it but once I did I read it in 2 days. Still not sure about the function of the ghost - the end seems to suggest that instead of a bane in her life, the ghost was really a guardian angel but this doesn’t ring true because the ghost did pretty much ruin Alice’s life, her interference making it appear like she was mentally ill. I also didn’t really get why Myrtle hated Alice so much - it went way beyond post natal depression.
What I liked - colonial life in Hong Kong in the 1950s - the extravagance and indulgence and privilege of it, the mystery of what happened to Alice - was she dead? The ending felt a bit unsatisfactory. Why did the ghost possess Alice from the start? And why did it eventually leave? Because her work was done?
What I liked - colonial life in Hong Kong in the 1950s - the extravagance and indulgence and privilege of it, the mystery of what happened to Alice - was she dead? The ending felt a bit unsatisfactory. Why did the ghost possess Alice from the start? And why did it eventually leave? Because her work was done?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2023
Absolutely exhausting to read.
Every detail is described and then repeated. It's verbose to the point of farce. No one ever "says" anything, they "interject coarsely," or "trill blithely." At one point, people are discussing what time it is and the conversation takes a full page and a half.
Every character sounds exactly the same and speaks like they were written by someone who's never met another human. Why does a dead Chinese child from the 1940s have exactly the same mannerisms and speech patterns as an Englishman in the 60s, or a carer in the 2000s?
Im genuinely surprised that something this poorly put together got published. The best thing about this was the cover art. Truly the worst thing I've read this year, and close to the worst thing I've read ever.
Every detail is described and then repeated. It's verbose to the point of farce. No one ever "says" anything, they "interject coarsely," or "trill blithely." At one point, people are discussing what time it is and the conversation takes a full page and a half.
Every character sounds exactly the same and speaks like they were written by someone who's never met another human. Why does a dead Chinese child from the 1940s have exactly the same mannerisms and speech patterns as an Englishman in the 60s, or a carer in the 2000s?
Im genuinely surprised that something this poorly put together got published. The best thing about this was the cover art. Truly the worst thing I've read this year, and close to the worst thing I've read ever.
November 6, 2009
I absolutely loved this book. This is Alice's story, told from many different points of view including the members of her dysfunctional family and the ghost that pairs herself with Alice. It is heartbreaking to see the pain that her mother puts her thru as she never wanted her. Thru life Alice accumulates more ghosts thru the guilt that she feels over different actions of her life. This book is like a train wreck you just cant quit reading it. Its so compelling and so heartbreaking you wonder what else this poor girl can endure. But all in all a most excellent read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 30, 2011
22nd July 2010
Disappointing! The story of a dysfunctional family which may have been made less miserable to read if it had been a believable ghost story but some of the specters that haunt Alice are not really all that believable. Neither the living or dead carachters were in the least endearing and the book had no real conclusion. I only persisted to see if it got better. It didn't!
Disappointing! The story of a dysfunctional family which may have been made less miserable to read if it had been a believable ghost story but some of the specters that haunt Alice are not really all that believable. Neither the living or dead carachters were in the least endearing and the book had no real conclusion. I only persisted to see if it got better. It didn't!
April 10, 2021
Dark, bizarre & beautiful! Very different from other novels I've read with hungry ghosts involved. It's very well written but also strange. The characters aren't people you would want to know in real life, but it didn't stop me from wanting to find out what happened to them.
March 29, 2016
Well written with very vivid scenes. However, the story was disjointed and I wanted more ghostliness, more Chinese-ness, more emotional connection.
May 16, 2024
3.5
This book wasn't particularly good or bad, but I think I'll miss the characters.
This book wasn't particularly good or bad, but I think I'll miss the characters.
May 26, 2016
I really enjoyed this, but that might be partly because I live in Hong Kong.
February 22, 2025
This was a strange but rather compelling read about the dysfunctional Safford family, in particular Alice onto whom the ghost of a young Chinese girl, Lin Shui, attaches herself. It's a story that in turn managed to fascinate, annoy & confuse me. It's told by various members of the family....but strangely never by Alice, whose story is told by "The Ghost". This chopping & changing of characters, along with leap forwards in time, could be a bit disjointing on occasions. However, on the plus side these multi POV's showed how different family members interpreted the same event. There are some beautifully descriptive passage which could be quite evocative yet others I found unnecessarily verbose.
As the ghosts...well, what I want to say will contain spoilers so *SPOILER ALERT!*
A book that I'd say was best to go into it with no expectations & without reading others reviews.
As the ghosts...well, what I want to say will contain spoilers so *SPOILER ALERT!*
A book that I'd say was best to go into it with no expectations & without reading others reviews.
February 16, 2023
This book almost felt pointless to me. I felt a lot of the tragedies that happened were torture porn. The only interesting one being Amanda. The ghost being a 1940s Chinese fisherman's daughter was unbelievable. Death having the image of a blonde boy was also a random choice to me. It felt like the author was out of her element. This is a story of a Chinese ghost child, terrorising a white family by haunting their daughter, Alice.
Alice herself has neurodivergent traits. I thought at first that the ghost was a metaphor for the difficulties of having autism in a family of assholes.
When I shifted my mindset into viewing the story as not one of meaning, but more of a voyeuristic journey into some people's lives - it became a lot more enjoyable, and the ghosts (who I'm sure we're meant to have a deep, meaningful presence) started to feel comedic. Especially with the Reta witchcraft stuff.
The story could've been a typical yet engaging one about a privileged, dysfunctional family with mixed morals. Now it is that, but with ghostly additions that feel like interruptions, and not enough character chemistry.
The absence of chemistry makes Lin Shui's departure to feel poignant. I wish it was more subtle exactly how Alice feels about her. It is like all the manic episodes have finally come to an end - and what was it all for?
A lot of who and what in this book feels very much : it be like that. No rhyme or reason, just things happen. Some meaningful, some not really. Why does Harry grow cold towards Alice despite having the most amicable relationship with her in their youth?
Why was the second rape and miscarriage needed at all? To make the marriage with Carl more tragic?
I really don't understand a lot of the decisions that go into this. And what is the point of Aunt Lucy in the second chapter? Alice was built to have so much mystery, only to keep it that way.
Alice does not show to have any wants or goals in life. She just, flows in every which way like driftwood. She tells no one about the hauntings, and when the siblings find out later - they just??? Leave it unsaid????
My favourite characters in this book are Ralph, Amanda Stubbs and Myrtle. The affair between them rounded Alice and Jillian's characters a lot more, and made it a fun read.
Alice herself has neurodivergent traits. I thought at first that the ghost was a metaphor for the difficulties of having autism in a family of assholes.
When I shifted my mindset into viewing the story as not one of meaning, but more of a voyeuristic journey into some people's lives - it became a lot more enjoyable, and the ghosts (who I'm sure we're meant to have a deep, meaningful presence) started to feel comedic. Especially with the Reta witchcraft stuff.
The story could've been a typical yet engaging one about a privileged, dysfunctional family with mixed morals. Now it is that, but with ghostly additions that feel like interruptions, and not enough character chemistry.
The absence of chemistry makes Lin Shui's departure to feel poignant. I wish it was more subtle exactly how Alice feels about her. It is like all the manic episodes have finally come to an end - and what was it all for?
A lot of who and what in this book feels very much : it be like that. No rhyme or reason, just things happen. Some meaningful, some not really. Why does Harry grow cold towards Alice despite having the most amicable relationship with her in their youth?
Why was the second rape and miscarriage needed at all? To make the marriage with Carl more tragic?
I really don't understand a lot of the decisions that go into this. And what is the point of Aunt Lucy in the second chapter? Alice was built to have so much mystery, only to keep it that way.
Alice does not show to have any wants or goals in life. She just, flows in every which way like driftwood. She tells no one about the hauntings, and when the siblings find out later - they just??? Leave it unsaid????
My favourite characters in this book are Ralph, Amanda Stubbs and Myrtle. The affair between them rounded Alice and Jillian's characters a lot more, and made it a fun read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 8, 2022
I am dead. No, strictly speaking that is not the truth. I am neither fully alive nor fully dead. I am ‘undead’. I am unable to relinquish my present and consign it to the past. I am unable to accept I have no future. Thus I am static, earthbound, my feet anchored in mud, while my essence, my chi, is being pulled, tugged, drawn towards the ghosts of my ancestors, towards the dominion of death.
Lin Shui was a young Chinese girl who is raped and murdered in 1942 by a Japanese soldier during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. As her body is not given a proper burial or funeral rites. Lin Shui becomes a hungry ghost bound to this world by her anger. She haunts the morgue of the old British Army Hospital until it is turned into a school for local children in 1967 and she finds the perfect host in a young girl called Alice Safford.
This is Alice’s story not Lin Shui’s but her haunting of Alice is integral to the story. Alice is a lost soul mostly ignored at home but her socialite but alcoholic mother and her father who adores her but is hardly ever home. Becoming a host for Lin Shui’s ghost makes her vulnerable to possession by other “hungry ghosts”
‘Anger binds me to this life,’ I inform it haughtily. ‘And you? What persuades you to loiter here?’ I make every effort to quell the animosity I am feeling at the unexpected arrival of this infant demon, this nursery vagabond.
‘Guilt,’ comes the burble of the miniature orang-utan. ‘Hers not mine,’ it adds with a mischievous wink.
The story is told by multiple characters including Alice’s parents, siblings and the ghost and spans the years from 1942 to 2007 with the backdrop of what is happening in Hong Kong at the time. The riots of 1967, the Typhoon Rose of 1971 and the handover of Hong Kong back to China in 1997.
This is a pretty dark story it deals with a lot of sensitive subjects, there is some humour but it is also pretty dark. Not for everyone.
Lin Shui was a young Chinese girl who is raped and murdered in 1942 by a Japanese soldier during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. As her body is not given a proper burial or funeral rites. Lin Shui becomes a hungry ghost bound to this world by her anger. She haunts the morgue of the old British Army Hospital until it is turned into a school for local children in 1967 and she finds the perfect host in a young girl called Alice Safford.
This is Alice’s story not Lin Shui’s but her haunting of Alice is integral to the story. Alice is a lost soul mostly ignored at home but her socialite but alcoholic mother and her father who adores her but is hardly ever home. Becoming a host for Lin Shui’s ghost makes her vulnerable to possession by other “hungry ghosts”
‘Anger binds me to this life,’ I inform it haughtily. ‘And you? What persuades you to loiter here?’ I make every effort to quell the animosity I am feeling at the unexpected arrival of this infant demon, this nursery vagabond.
‘Guilt,’ comes the burble of the miniature orang-utan. ‘Hers not mine,’ it adds with a mischievous wink.
The story is told by multiple characters including Alice’s parents, siblings and the ghost and spans the years from 1942 to 2007 with the backdrop of what is happening in Hong Kong at the time. The riots of 1967, the Typhoon Rose of 1971 and the handover of Hong Kong back to China in 1997.
This is a pretty dark story it deals with a lot of sensitive subjects, there is some humour but it is also pretty dark. Not for everyone.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 7, 2018
This seems to be one of those love or hate books. I come down on the side of loving it. Occasionally I felt like the author had swallowed a thesaurus, but it's easy enough on a Kindle to look up words, so I quite enjoyed that side of it. The story was painful, but quite exquisite. There was a raw reality to the pain and dysfunction of Alice's family and her consequent disturbing experiences. The characters were believable, the context described in evocative detail, the unfolding story quite riveting and cleverly done. I couldn't put it down. And now I have put it down, I don't want to pick up another story for a day or two, so I can mull on it. Thank you, Anne Berry.
March 16, 2021
Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid. Kept hoping for it to get better but it never did. It was a sad portrait of a dysfunctional British family in Hong Kong with four ghosts thrown in who followed around the main character, Alice Stafford, including a Chinese woman, a dog, a bird and a monkey that used to be an embryo. Yuck! If I hadn't been reading this as part of a book group, I never would have finished it.
January 8, 2024
A dark and capitvating exploration of the life of the Safford family with the central character being Alice. We find out a bit about the social history of Hong Kong since the Second World War. We also find out about the festival of The Hungry Ghosts. I was very interested in the character of Myrtle Safford and why she was so possessive of her husband and so resentful of her daughter Alice. There is a lot of detail and information which I found very poetic to read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2025
Interested read with the perspective shifting. Some of the characters were tough to relate to, and quite frustrating. The opening of the book was tough - but really set the scene as far as why some “ghosts” stick around. Lots of interesting symbolism throughout. I enjoyed the time period - I didn’t know much about the British occupying Hong Kong. It was an interesting political story to be exposed to. Overall: not the worst nor the best read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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