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onesonicbite's review against another edition
3.0
I picked up this book randomly from Borders when it was going out of business back in the day. It looked interesting, so why not? It sat on my shelf for a long time, until I finally plucked it off the shelf to read for the Halloween season. And since there aren't many reviews, I figured I would give my two cents on here.
The story follows Cheng-Ming, a Chinese-American journalist, who is investigating ghosts and murderers in Taipei. It is ghost season on the island, and Cheng-Ming gets pulled into the folklore of spirits and ghosts. At the same time he is also interviewing a woman who claims she was a lover to a notorious killer-rapist who is on the loose- K.
There are many things I loved about this book, mostly the writing style. The author does a great job creating a beautiful landscape that is eerie and isn't cliched. I've never been to Taipei but I have a very visual landscape painted in my mind. I do know that some of the concepts with ghosts are ones that seem to follow Chinese folklore, though I am not sure if the author took some liberties to the ghost cannon.
What I didn't like about this book is the complexity. I hate saying this but it isn't a book I should of been reading before bed. It is dense, and requires the reader to be fairly sharp. As the story progresses the main protagonist becomes increasingly unreliable. Is he hallucinating? What happened when he blacked out? And towards the end, I admit, had a hard time keeping up.
What is more confusing was the second half, which changes to K as the protagonist, and I DID NOT pick this up right away, which left me a little confused. I still enjoyed reading the story, and would like to pick it up again. I am a little sad that there isn't anything else by this author, because I would of enjoyed seeing what he would come up with next.
The story follows Cheng-Ming, a Chinese-American journalist, who is investigating ghosts and murderers in Taipei. It is ghost season on the island, and Cheng-Ming gets pulled into the folklore of spirits and ghosts. At the same time he is also interviewing a woman who claims she was a lover to a notorious killer-rapist who is on the loose- K.
There are many things I loved about this book, mostly the writing style. The author does a great job creating a beautiful landscape that is eerie and isn't cliched. I've never been to Taipei but I have a very visual landscape painted in my mind. I do know that some of the concepts with ghosts are ones that seem to follow Chinese folklore, though I am not sure if the author took some liberties to the ghost cannon.
What I didn't like about this book is the complexity. I hate saying this but it isn't a book I should of been reading before bed. It is dense, and requires the reader to be fairly sharp. As the story progresses the main protagonist becomes increasingly unreliable. Is he hallucinating? What happened when he blacked out? And towards the end, I admit, had a hard time keeping up.
What is more confusing was the second half, which changes to K as the protagonist, and I DID NOT pick this up right away, which left me a little confused. I still enjoyed reading the story, and would like to pick it up again. I am a little sad that there isn't anything else by this author, because I would of enjoyed seeing what he would come up with next.
sh_ng's review against another edition
4.0
extra star for the delightful prose and concept, though it was so disorienting i had no idea what was going on
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