januaryghosts's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
messyheart's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
vivandbooks's review against another edition
4.0
A nice fun one. A rich world and good writing. Definitely a great mood read if you’re looking for something that’s not too heavy. I love the vibes of this one. It was moody and atmospheric.
mbrigman2's review against another edition
I should have stopped at about 60 pages in. There were SO many overlapping plot points. It was impossible to keep up! I also didn't care for Li Lan. I skimmed the last chapters and there were even more last minute plot points that felt completely out of left field for me. Glad I decided not to finish this one. It felt like a rollercoaster. One I was more than happy to get off of.
Spoiler
Fan takes over her body and she ends up with Er Lang. What?!avciera7's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
I wanted to like this book, but I just COULDN'T get into it. I think this book solidified to me that I don't like plot-driven novels. The pacing was glacial and I struggled to even finish the book. There were times where it felt like the story just stopped for the author to insert a bit of her research without tying things back into the story. The characters and writing were overall pretty flat. There were a couple beautiful descriptions, at least. The setting, the ghost world, and several plot beats were really interesting on paper, but they were rendered so flatly and with such a lack of intrigue. . I just felt a LOT of missed potential in this book.
moirwyn's review against another edition
4.0
This review originally appeared on my blog, Books Without Any Pictures:
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2014/08/19/the-ghost-bride-by-yangsze-choo/
In The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo, a young Chinese woman navigates the boundaries between life and death as she approaches her wedding day.
After her mother died, Li Lan’s father neglected her social life, instead choosing to sit in his office and smoke opium. Now Li Lan nearly eighteen, and her prospects for marriage are bleak. Her family has no money because her father hasn’t been paying attention to his business since his wife’s death. One day, a member of the Lim family offers a unique proposition. Li Lan could marry their son, who recently passed away, and could live with them as his widow. Ghost marriages are uncommon, and are usually made to fulfill a promise to a dying lover, not out of the blue. Li Lan is understandably freaked out by the prospect, but she also knows that her family is in dire financial straits and that the marriage would mean she’d be taken care of. While she’s at a party at the Lim manor, Li Lan meets a handsome stranger whom she immediately begins to fall for. However, her dead wanna-be fiance keeps haunting her dreams, and Li Lan must navigate the worlds of both the living and the dead to free herself from his otherworldly influence. Along the way, Li Lan unearths her family’s secrets.
So, The Ghost Bride was a really weird book. I can’t say that I loved it, but I will say that it was rather unusual and stands out from many of the other books I’ve been reading recently. The whole book is rather surreal, and reminds me rather strongly of the Hayao Miyazaki film Spirited Away (which I loved, don’t get me wrong). Li Lan spends much of the book in the Chinese afterlife, where she’s in a limbo state that’s neither alive nor dead. Because she isn’t a ghost, she perceives it differently than the spirits who populate it. The afterlife is a parallel world, filled with corrupt border officials, heavenly courts, and nobles pretending to be servants to alleviate boredom and keep from passing on to the next realm. Each spirit has possessions that are based on the amount of funeral offerings that their families burn for them, which influences the social hierarchies within the afterlife.
The part of the story that takes place in the real world is set in British Malaya, which was a cultural melting pot in 1893. As such, we see a lot of different influences in Li Lan’s life. Her father is very rational, and doesn’t believe in the world of spirits. Her Amah, on the other hand, is very superstitious, and tells her about ghosts, mediums, and luck. Then there’s Tian Bai, whom Li Lan has a crush on. He’s Catholic, and has spent time abroad. The different cultures that are present in Malaya are blended into the afterlife, and a man that Li Lan meets there mentions that he’s just passing through, because he’s not Chinese and therefore this isn’t his afterlife.
Rather than a love triangle, there’s a love quadrilateral going on in The Ghost Bride. Normally I dislike love triangles (and other love polygons), but in this case I didn’t mind it. The first suitor is dead, and Li Lan wants nothing to do with him because he’s creepy. The second is someone she finds attractive, and spends most of the book pining over, despite the fact that they have little shared life experience. The third love interest is a surprise, and I’m not gonna talk about him.
I’d recommend The Ghost Bride if you’re in the mood for something out-of-the-ordinary. Yangsze Choo sculpts a Chinese afterlife that as fascinating as it is macabre.
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2014/08/19/the-ghost-bride-by-yangsze-choo/
In The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo, a young Chinese woman navigates the boundaries between life and death as she approaches her wedding day.
After her mother died, Li Lan’s father neglected her social life, instead choosing to sit in his office and smoke opium. Now Li Lan nearly eighteen, and her prospects for marriage are bleak. Her family has no money because her father hasn’t been paying attention to his business since his wife’s death. One day, a member of the Lim family offers a unique proposition. Li Lan could marry their son, who recently passed away, and could live with them as his widow. Ghost marriages are uncommon, and are usually made to fulfill a promise to a dying lover, not out of the blue. Li Lan is understandably freaked out by the prospect, but she also knows that her family is in dire financial straits and that the marriage would mean she’d be taken care of. While she’s at a party at the Lim manor, Li Lan meets a handsome stranger whom she immediately begins to fall for. However, her dead wanna-be fiance keeps haunting her dreams, and Li Lan must navigate the worlds of both the living and the dead to free herself from his otherworldly influence. Along the way, Li Lan unearths her family’s secrets.
So, The Ghost Bride was a really weird book. I can’t say that I loved it, but I will say that it was rather unusual and stands out from many of the other books I’ve been reading recently. The whole book is rather surreal, and reminds me rather strongly of the Hayao Miyazaki film Spirited Away (which I loved, don’t get me wrong). Li Lan spends much of the book in the Chinese afterlife, where she’s in a limbo state that’s neither alive nor dead. Because she isn’t a ghost, she perceives it differently than the spirits who populate it. The afterlife is a parallel world, filled with corrupt border officials, heavenly courts, and nobles pretending to be servants to alleviate boredom and keep from passing on to the next realm. Each spirit has possessions that are based on the amount of funeral offerings that their families burn for them, which influences the social hierarchies within the afterlife.
The part of the story that takes place in the real world is set in British Malaya, which was a cultural melting pot in 1893. As such, we see a lot of different influences in Li Lan’s life. Her father is very rational, and doesn’t believe in the world of spirits. Her Amah, on the other hand, is very superstitious, and tells her about ghosts, mediums, and luck. Then there’s Tian Bai, whom Li Lan has a crush on. He’s Catholic, and has spent time abroad. The different cultures that are present in Malaya are blended into the afterlife, and a man that Li Lan meets there mentions that he’s just passing through, because he’s not Chinese and therefore this isn’t his afterlife.
Rather than a love triangle, there’s a love quadrilateral going on in The Ghost Bride. Normally I dislike love triangles (and other love polygons), but in this case I didn’t mind it. The first suitor is dead, and Li Lan wants nothing to do with him because he’s creepy. The second is someone she finds attractive, and spends most of the book pining over, despite the fact that they have little shared life experience. The third love interest is a surprise, and I’m not gonna talk about him.
I’d recommend The Ghost Bride if you’re in the mood for something out-of-the-ordinary. Yangsze Choo sculpts a Chinese afterlife that as fascinating as it is macabre.
zookie_b's review against another edition
The pacing was too slow and the lead character was too passive for my liking.
jennifersiyuanzhou's review against another edition
3.0
loved the world
relations were interesting but unexplored
—> THEY COULDVE DONE SO MUCH MORE!! W the mom, the concubine, the everything sjfjdjdbndnd
didn't follow the romance lol (was so unecessary???)
so much stuff happened off-screen (the reveal, the intrigue)
i was genuinely interested in certain things but...it was very anti-climatic...
tl;dr loved the first half, second was meh
relations were interesting but unexplored
—> THEY COULDVE DONE SO MUCH MORE!! W the mom, the concubine, the everything sjfjdjdbndnd
didn't follow the romance lol (was so unecessary???)
so much stuff happened off-screen (the reveal, the intrigue)
i was genuinely interested in certain things but...it was very anti-climatic...
tl;dr loved the first half, second was meh