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The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo is a coming of age story, an adventure tale with a sprinkle of magic realism, and a historical novel set in 1930s colonial Malaya (today’s Malaysia).
The story begins with a deathbed promise to find and reunite a severed finger with its owner. The rest of the plot brings together mysterious woman-eating tigers, masters and servants, womanizing doctors, dance hall girls, an abusive stepfather and a mother with gambling debts, vivid dreams about the dead at a train s ...more
The story begins with a deathbed promise to find and reunite a severed finger with its owner. The rest of the plot brings together mysterious woman-eating tigers, masters and servants, womanizing doctors, dance hall girls, an abusive stepfather and a mother with gambling debts, vivid dreams about the dead at a train s ...more
3.5 stars. A beautifully written tale, part family drama mixed with mystery and folklore, set in 1930s Malaysia under British rule. Ji Lin is a young woman forced to moonlight as a dance hall girl to help pay off her mother's secret gambling debts, while her adored stepbrother Shin gets to go to medical school in Singapore. Meanwhile, a young houseboy named Ren is on a mission to recover a missing finger that belonged to his former master, a British doctor who has passed away. There is a magical
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I stayed up way, way past my bedtime so I could read this all in one go. Choo writes with such a wonderful sense of place and time. Unfortunately, when I woke up the next morning, some of the wonder that had carried me through the initial reading was gone, leaving me nitpicking some things that didn't work. (view spoiler)
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1930's Malaya, weretigers, missing pathology specimens, the ex-pat lifestyle, and local myths and legends. Possibly a childhood in Malaya made this more interesting, I really enjoyed the local references and language. I'll be checking out this author's earlier book.
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Audiobook. Started reading the physical book. Right away really liked the form and the language and the story threads, so of course put it down to take up another. Continued with audiobook- narrated by the author, nice for non-English terms and for her British accent. A lovely listen. Some surprises for me- who the fifth actually was, what would happen to Ren. Some inklings - the romance, the tiger killings, the parts side hustler, Shin’s deal with his father. I liked that Ji Lin stood up for he
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Thoroughly enjoyed this book. I'm not usually a fan of magical realism, but the author expertly wove those into the story.
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Mar 06, 2019
Curlysue
marked it as to-read
Mar 15, 2019
Natasha
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Mar 20, 2019
Stacey Matson
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Apr 01, 2019
Stacey
marked it as bailed
May 22, 2019
Johanne
marked it as to-read
May 31, 2019
Laura
marked it as tbr-recent
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Nov 23, 2019
Georgia Carvalho
rated it
really liked it
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Dec 10, 2019
Michelle
marked it as to-read
Dec 15, 2019
Amber
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Dec 24, 2019
Kara
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Feb 04, 2020
TR Ryan
marked it as to-read
May 08, 2021
Kirsten Barber
marked it as to-read-soon
