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Content Warning: death, murder, violence, rape, sexual abuse (including that of a child), torture, mutilation, racism, suicide, self-harm, misogyny.

In 1927 Singapore, Gean Choo is out of choices. Burdened by her father's massive debts, she decides to work as an amah -- a housegirl -- for the wealthy Verity Edevane, an Englishwoman who has a rather dark reputation amongst the girls looking for work as maids. Gean Choo certainly doesn't expect to be taken in by the strange Mrs. Edevane, who consumes blood tofu and keeps odd nighttime hours. Against her better judgement, she becomes entangled with her often cruel mistress, all while questioning her feelings for Po Lam, the woman who dresses in suits and oversees all of Mrs. Edevane's business. Caught between two women who love her, Gean Choo has to decide the future she wants for herself -- and if she wants to escape the encroaching darkness or not.

I've been wanting to read this dark sapphic novel by Lianyu Tan for some while, but I was always too busy with other books to get my chance. Finally, I decided to make time and pick it up, and while it's not an unenjoyable experience, I'm afraid that it didn't quite match up with my expectations. If you're wanting to read this for yourself, I must tell you beforehand: please heed the warnings listed above. This book is dark, and I do mean dark -- the relationship between Gean Choo and Verity is extremely toxic, not just borderline inappropriate, but full-on abusive.

There's a dearth of sapphic novels that deal with darker subjects, and it seems that, as with all gay relationships in media, people are often afraid to address the complexities that are a dime a dozen in heterosexual ones. It's something that irks me, and I'm not going to lie: the idea of a sapphic book with cruel, evil characters who are unrepentant is about appealing as it gets to me. That being said, The Wicked and the Willing suffers from a lack of compelling characterization. It all felt a bit shallow, and because of this, it makes it hard to like the evil Mrs. Edevane against your better judgement. Instead, you simply sit there and wonder why it is that Gean Choo finds her so magnetic. 

Po Lam, on the other hand, operates as an instantly likable heroic figure. In spite of the things she's being forced to do, and her complicity in the evils of this novel, she's relatable, sympathetic, and you will root for her immediately. There's a beautiful gentleness between her and Gean Choo, even when they're arguing. It's actually difficult for me to imagine readers disliking her or, perhaps to put it more succinctly, wishing that Gean Choo would chose Verity over her. 

Gean Choo feels as if she's little more than a reader insert, a sort of leftover from those (rather dull) self-insert fanfictions. She has no real personality, and although there are many instances where you will pity her, that's about it. It's only at the very end that she grows a semblance of a backbone, and it was extremely satisfying, to say the very least. I also wasn't a fan of the multiple choice ending -- in my opinion, a total copout. 

Most disappointing of all, the potential it has simply isn't fully realized. There's many interesting concepts here, but even in 400+ pages, it didn't make me care enough about Gean Choo or Verity. My problem here isn't to do with the subject matter (which many people will find bothersome, so keep that in mind), as I think if straight girls are allowed to rant and rave over Penelope Douglas, Tiffany Reisz and C.J. Roberts, then the wlw community should be allowed their Lianyu Tans', but I do have a problem with the character and world-building.

Overall, it's not something I would necessarily recommend, especially to a general audience. If you're curious, though, I'd say to give it a shot -- who knows, you might love it. For me, it just was not the dark romance I was looking for. 

Book Review: Such a Pretty Girl by T. Greenwood

 

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Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington for allowing me to read this ARC!

Content Warning: pedophilia, sexual assault, misogyny, racism, homophobia, homophobic slurs.

In 1976, Ryan Flannigan became a star. Only ten years old at the time, she's haunted by a past of exploitation and a fame that she never craved. Now, in 2019, she's living a quiet life in Vermont with her daughter, but everything she's tried so hard to escape all comes crashing back in when she's made aware of a devastating news report involving a controversial photograph taken of her when she was a little girl. That photo has been found in the hands of a billionaire pedophile and sex trafficker, but the worst of it is that Ryan's mother herself gifted it to him. Forced to confront her neglectful mother and the question of her innocence, Ryan reminisces on the path to her stardom and her lost youth. 

Clearly inspired by the often controversial life of former child stat Brooke Shields, as well as the recent scandal involving Epstein and his accomplices, Such a Pretty Girl is a harrowing, well-done account of the push and pull between a selfish mother and the daughter who -- like all children -- wants to give her everything. 

This story is a painful journey. Of course, it's easy to sympathize with our heroine, Ryan, who we follow from her childhood up until adulthood. Now a mother herself, Ryan looks back and recognizes her mother's neglect and the way she was exploited, with no one willing to protect her. Her relationship with Sasha, her daughter, is beautifully done, as she struggles to balance giving Sasha her freedom without suffocating her. As for the complicated, uncomfortable relationship between Ryan and her own mother, Greenwood is impressive in her capability to show us the mingled love and hate, the way that Ryan both craves her mother's love and is never sure of its reliability. 

Mainly character-driven, Such a Pretty Girl is at its strongest when Ryan is evaluating her past, opening herself up to the painful questions that plague her about her the degree of involvement her mother has had with not only Ryan's exploitation, but the exploitation of other young girls. It's certainly a timely novel, and I think that Greenwood handles all of the issues addressed with remarkable grace. 

As a whole, I would highly recommend this novel, especially for its beautiful descriptions of life in the '70s and its protagonist coming to terms with her mother's abuse. It is often a difficult read, but one certainly worth the time and effort. 

Book Review: The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror by Joyce Carl Oates

 

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Content Warning: death (including that of a child), murder, violence, rape, sexual harassment, racism, child abuse, minor/adult relationship, grooming, animal death, homophobic slurs, homophobia.

A boy becomes obsessed with dolls after the untimely death of his little cousin. A husband and wife journey to the Galapagos Island -- but is he trying to kill her? A student is entrusted with caring for her favorite teacher's house, only to live through a hellish night with an intruder. Another girl befriends a strange family and is introduced to their reticulated python, Big Momma... 

These are just a few of the stories included in The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, and like all short story collections, some of them are more successful than others. Oates's classic, peculiar style of writing is, as always, present here, and as someone who enjoys it, I thought these were particularly on the mark. Unlike some collections, these stories verge on the longer side, another element I found myself enjoying, as they didn't seem to suffer from the sometimes shallow characterization in other short stories. 

My favorites are probably the title story, "The Doll Master," as well as "Big Momma" and "Gun Accident." For some reason, these are the ones I found myself thinking about even when I'd put the book down. "The Doll Master" is a classic tale of psychological suspense, through the eyes of a rather disturbed young man, and while I feared it might suffer from some of the problems in Oates's Jeffrey Dahmer-inspired "Zombie," I actually enjoyed it from beginning to end. It's also one of the only stories with a clear-cut ending, and if vagueness bothers you, you probably won't find yourself too fond of this book. 

"Big Momma" concerns the misfit Clovis family, who lure a young girl, Violet, into an uneasy friendship with them. Oates excels at writing young people, especially young women -- they always feel realistic, and for me, I often find myself thinking of my younger self when I read them. Violet is stubborn, your usual temperamental girl on the cusp of puberty, and her intense desire for any kind of affection and attention (no matter where or who it comes from) is all too relatable. "Gun Accident" is a bit similar, at least in its choice of protagonist, a young girl who housesits for the teacher she has a crush on. The night takes a turn for the worse, and now grown, she reflects back on the ghastly events that occurred, questioning the reliability of memory and the public desire for gory details.

As for the others, "Equatorial," the tale of the wife who is convinced her husband is trying to kill her, struck me as a bit flat sometimes -- and even I grew annoyed with Audrey, our main character. The whole thing with the "Asian girl" was a bit weird, and I wasn't quite sure if it was supposed to be Audrey's ignorance or not. The ultimate goal of the story is for us to question the motives of the couple, as well as what's real and what's not, never quite delineating clearly between the two. For me, it was mildly successful, though I didn't like the ending. "Soldier" is my least favorite of the entire collection. I get what Oates is trying to say about racism, but in my opinion, it was handled rather clumsily and didn't quite have the bite that the rest of the tales do. It's decent, but for me, nothing special.

"Mystery, Inc." I enjoyed quite a lot. It's at the very end, and while I did like it, I don't think it left as much of an impression on me as some of the others. As a whole, the collection is pretty good; some people were disappointed, not finding it "terrifying" enough, but I like this genre of terror -- the kind that works at your mind, and leaves you wondering what exactly is going on. In this regard, "Big Momma" is the easy winner, about as creepy as they come.

All in all, I'd recommend it! 

Book Review: Daughters of the New Year by E.M. Tran

 

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Thank you to NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for allowing me to read this ARC!

Content Warning: death, violence, racism, misogyny, emotional abuse, sexual harassment, rape, colonization.

The Trung family lives in modern-day New Orleans, Louisiana. The three daughters are all completely different, but each is striving for her own kind of peace and freedom in her life: Trac, the eldest, a respected lawyer who is coming to terms with her sexuality; Nhi, who has joined a dating show in the hopes of making it big as an actress; and the baby of the family, Trieu, who is finding it difficult to find her place in life at all. Their mother, Xuan, the former Saigon beauty queen of 1973, tries desperately to determine her daughters' fates through the usage of the Vietnamese Zodiac, but in her attempts, ends up pushing them further away from her. As they all try to come to terms with both their pasts and their inevitable futures, E.M. Tran traces the lineage of the Trung women through history, asking questions about the value of learned histories, and what it means to be a daughter and a mother.

The concept of tracing a female line of ancestors back through time is what sold this book to me. As someone who absolutely loves generational stories that deal with the history of a singular family, I had a feeling that E.M. Tran's Daughters of the New Year would be something that would offer both something new to me, and something familiar that I already adore. Even in my quest to read more diverse books, I've actually read few novels by Vietnamese authors, and I was so excited to pick this up and delve into a story that deals with some of Vietnam's complicated past while never forgetting to center the powerful female characters that make this so compulsively readable.

The story starts with Xuan Trung, the Metal Tiger mother of the three Trung girls, as she tries to divine their fate for the coming New Year. We quickly get the feeling that the girls feel both drawn to their mother's stories, even as they struggle with their mixed disdain and love for their mother's forceful belief in the Zodiac and astrology. All of the characters in this book are equally strong, and although it's usually a given that I'll have a favorite when reading something with multiple POV characters, this time, I felt entranced by every single woman that Tran puts on the page. Although this story deals with themes of racism, being an outsider, and most especially the complicated relationships unique to immigrant families, any daughter or mother reading this -- no matter where she's from, who she is, or the particular circumstances that make up her life -- will instantly see themselves in the Trung women.

Tran's exploration of generational pain and trauma is powerful. She asks the important question that has plagued families since the dawn of time: how important are learned histories, and when and how should they be relayed to children? There's no real "right" answer, but even painful histories are important, particularly, I think, to the children of immigrants. The desire to know where your family comes from, what has shaped them into who they are, is something all of us yearn for.

My only complaints with this book are mainly selfish: the timeline goes backwards, and so we have only our own imagination when it comes to what happens to Tran, Nhi, Trieu and their mother! I would have loved to see a bit of closure, but honestly, I think that's another element of what Tran is talking about here -- for many families, there is no "closure." Perhaps Xuan will never be able to talk about the fall of Saigon, or her life before Vietnam was torn in two. Perhaps the girls will never quite find the answers they're looking for. It's a meditation on the sometimes unspeakable past. There were moments where Tran's writing could be a bit simplistic, losing me a little, but the story itself is so powerful that it didn't alter my rating by much.

Highly recommended!