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What Members Thought
This book in ways reads like a mystery and in my opinion a most enjoyable, fast read. Set in Malaysia in the early to mid 20th century. The story follows a young woman, Ji Lin, apprenticing as a dressmaker by day and secretly at night as a dance instructor/teacher. She is working to pay off her mother's card debt to an unsavory loanshark. One evening a dance partner unwittingly leaves her with a withered human finger in a tiny glass case. It develops that the finger must be buried with it's owne
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3.5, round up to 4.
a few too many loose threads, dropped plot lines, soured my initial response after finishing the book, but overall, if I look beneath, I enjoyed the setting, the prose, the imagery, the mythology, and how the author paralleled Ren’s hero’s journey with Ji Lin’s own journey. EDIT - I realize what I thought were dropped plot lines were just because I tried to read the book while watching baseball playoff game. Listening to discussion at book club, I realized I missed a few ke
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Nov 01, 2025
Genie Higbee
added it
