The Night Tiger in Around the Year in 52 Books

Jun 01, 2020 Jacqie rated it liked it

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy of this book for review.

I enjoyed this author's first book, "The Ghost Bride", which is briefly referred to in this book. The setting, 1930s Malaya, isn't often seen in my reading and it's brought vividly to life. The setting was a big plus for me.

Ji Lin was a character I bought into, as well. She's from the town of Ipoh, which is about midway between Kuala Lumpur and Penang and which I have ambitions to visit someday. She's trying to make her own way in Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy of this book for review.

I enjoyed this author's first book, "The Ghost Bride", which is briefly referred to in this book. The setting, 1930s Malaya, isn't often seen in my reading and it's brought vividly to life. The setting was a big plus for me.

Ji Lin was a character I bought into, as well. She's from the town of Ipoh, which is about midway between Kuala Lumpur and Penang and which I have ambitions to visit someday. She's trying to make her own way in the world and also get her mother out of some mah jong debt. This means that in addition to apprenticing to a seamstress, she's working as a dance hall girl. Her mother is married to her cruel stepfather and her stepbrother (born on the same day that she was!) is in Singapore working to become a doctor. I was invested in Ji Lin's storyline. She was plucky, sassy, smart and brave.

Ren, the eleven year old boy who was the other main character, wasn't as interesting to me. Ren was on a mission to find his recently passed master's missing finger. According to Malayan lore, a spirit lingers near its former body for 49 days. The body must be whole, or the spirit won't be able to pass on correctly and may become a ghost or evil spirit. Ren goes to a friend of his old master's, a surgeon, and becomes part of his household as he looks for the finger.

This missing finger is the McGuffin that drives the plot. Ji Lin stumbles across it, Ren is looking for it, and it seems to generate bad luck.

I was really enjoying the story, although it seemed to be moving rather slowly. Ren and Ji Lin take forever to find each other. Meanwhile, Ji Lin is being helped by her stepbrother Xin, who she seems to have feelings for and may have some for her in return?

The book shifts tone about halfway through and becomes much more about this teased romance. Ji Lin and Xin's parents REALLY don't want these two together. Now, they are step-siblings, but there's no blood relationship there. (OR is there? It seems like the author is setting things up for some sort of sequel?) It made me wonder if I was missing something or if there's a really strong taboo against even step siblings being together. But I felt like I was missing a step. I also ended up cooling off on Xin. While initially he seemed to care about Ji Lin, after her started talking about making her "his" by having sex with her I started to find him creepy.

There's a mystery to be solved here, but I'm not sure enough clues were provided other than atmosphere to solve it as a reader. So, while I loved the setting and liked some of the characters, the plot was sort of formless and veered around and I ended up feeling like the end of the book was much weaker than its beginning.

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May 12, 2020 Tiffany rated it liked it

Shelves: audio-book, book-club-reads, historical-fiction, read-by-the-author, read-in-2020, reeses-book-club, dont-know-how-i-really-feel-about-t

I wanted to love this book, I really did. I loved the premise and setting, and how the author wove together magical realism, superstitions, and folklore/mythology. However, the middle of the book dragged for me. I switched back and forth between reading and listening to it, but some parts were still a struggle to get through. Though it was slower paced, I felt like too much was going on and yet no real/interesting information was revealed until the end. And I don't really think that the developm ...more

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