The Ghost Bride in SBTB Goodreads Group

Sep 17, 2020 Sha rated it really liked it

Shelves: a-pretty-cover, a-title-to-remember

Plot: A rich woman proposes an impoverished girl marry her son's ghost, and despite the girls' protests she finds herself haunted till she has to take drastic measures.

1. This book is slower than what I usually like because my preferences lean more towards snappy dialogue than lyrical descriptions. However, there was enough meat in the plot- enough stakes, menace and interesting worldbuilding to keep me reading at a relatively steady pace.

2. This story took a lot of turns I wasn't expecting? I m ...more

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Jan 31, 2020 Christine rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

This reads a bit like a YA coming of age fantasy/horror romance. I gave it three stars for the world-building, setting, folk lore, and mythology., all of which I kind of wanted a lot more of than I actually got.

The novel concerns a teenage girl who is asked to become a Ghost Bride. A Ghost Bride is a tradition for the Chinese Territories and not Mainland China, where the family of a dead male relative may request an impoverished or down on her luck girl to become the ghost bride of a recently de This reads a bit like a YA coming of age fantasy/horror romance. I gave it three stars for the world-building, setting, folk lore, and mythology., all of which I kind of wanted a lot more of than I actually got.

The novel concerns a teenage girl who is asked to become a Ghost Bride. A Ghost Bride is a tradition for the Chinese Territories and not Mainland China, where the family of a dead male relative may request an impoverished or down on her luck girl to become the ghost bride of a recently deceased son. It's mainly ceremonial and their needs are taken care of -- in actuality. In the book, it takes on another eerie connotation all together.

In 1800s Malaysia, Li Lian has to fight off the advances of the recently deceased Lim Tian Ching who is haunting her dreams. She goes to extreme lengths to do so - and ends up a partial ghost, able to leave her body and wander about the after-life. Much like other novels of this sort -- the writer imagines the after-life as a bit of pale copy of own world. (For once I'd like to see another approach. But alas, no.) Or basically they live like they did in the alive world, but with all the color drained from it. In some respects the book's world-building reminded me of the anime film Spirited Away, except I liked Spirited Away a bit better.

The romance, such as it is, is between Li Lian and Er Lang...a minor official of the other realm or minor deity, who also happens to be a loong or water dragon. He's interesting, but we don't get much of him unfortunately. Instead we get a lot of Li Lian whining and navel gazing and worrying and fretting, to the point that I wanted to smack her upside the head. Also what he or anyone else sees in her, I don't know, she's does dumb things. This novel has been adapted into a television serial for Netflix -- which takes a different tact according to the trailer -- in the series, Li Lian journeys to the spirit world to help find a murderer and assist in vengeance to save her father's life. This is not the case in the book - the father is never in danger and is a rather weak man who isn't featured. But I can see why they did that -- otherwise it would be a boring series. Not much happens in the book, Li Lian wanders about and has confrontations with various ghosts, gets herself in trouble, gets saved by Er Lang at various junctures...

It's mostly descriptive and told in a rambling first person narrative style. It bored me. I kept skimming and thinking, okay, okay, I get that she's feeling guilty, can we move on please? Or yes, I understand she's worried about seeing her mother but do we really need to spend fifty pages on this?

The problem with Kindle's is you can't skip ahead and see if the book gets better as it goes. You're sort of stuck going one page at a time. Makes me miss paperbacks and hardcover. ...more

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Sep 04, 2015 Michelle (MichelleBookAddict) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: movie-or-tv-show, fantasy-romance, favorite, physical-own, book-boyfriend, autumn-vibes, book-girlfriend, staying-true-to-history

5★♥♥

To describe this book without any spoilers is complex, especially to describe all the little Chinese traditions, folklores and fairy tales that are interwoven in this book. The description of the book had me thinking of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride... which have little in common now that I've read this, but they both have a dark mood.

So I'll try to given a short summary without spoiling the story here.
The setting is a historical fiction, 1893 set in Malacca, Malaysia. There is the still some Ol ...more

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Oct 30, 2015 Kate K. F. rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish

This is one of those books that didn't really click for me mainly due to pacing, tone and not really caring about the characters. I found the setting of Malacca intriguing and seeing the different households and the world, but I didn't really care about anyone involved. A major problem for me was that the first part of the book seems to be a romance but without a lot of actual interaction between the main characters. Then in the second part, it shifts to something more supernatural but I was sti ...more

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Mar 16, 2014 Sarah rated it it was amazing

This was great! Loved this story. Can't wait for the next novel from Yangsze Choo. ...more

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Jun 11, 2017 hipcait rated it did not like it

Shelves: didn-t-finish

I was SO excited for this book. The plot and the mix of genres sounded fascinating, but it's just not well written. It has the feel of a pretty good draft based around a really good idea that's had the life beaten out of it by an editor. Specifically an editor who asked the writer to overexplain everything so Americans will understand. I couldn't get past 20 pages because I felt like the writer didn't trust me as a reader at all. ...more

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Oct 24, 2014 Maryanne rated it it was ok

The main character is a blank. She has no particular personality or flair aside from a few mentions of her scholarship which seem only to come out as her being literate. The "too stupid to live" moments outweighed any parts of interest for me. I liked the idea of this book and world building but ultimately it fell flat. ...more

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