The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

 

I loved this book. It was one of the most dynamic and well-written stories I've read in a long time. I love how Choo trickles out her details and connects her characters.

This is a book that's both a coming-of-age story, and one about the importance of truth. While there are multiple characters who are vital to the narrative, this is really only about two of them.

Taking place in 1930's Malaysia, Ji Lin is dealing with the restrictive society of the day. Her stepfather halted her education, even though she's quite smart, so she can't fulfill her professional dreams of being a nurse. Her mom has a secret mahjong debt, and Ji Lin feels a responsibility to help pay it off.  This means working two jobs, as both a dressmaker's apprentice and a dance hall girl.

Ren is only 11, but has lived quite a life. He's just lost his master, a doctor, to illness. A loyal houseboy, Ren promises the dying man he'll undertake a crazy mission of finding the doctor's lost finger and returning it to the grave. Without this missing piece, the doctor fears his soul won't move on. Ren ventures out to track down the finger, offering his services up to the surgeon who removed the finger in the first place (for medical reasons.)

You'd now think this is a story about a finger. Ren hunts for it. Ji Lin ends up in possession of it (that's not a spoiler.) However, the story is something so different.

For Ji Lin, the finger puts her on the right path, but her story is about finding her voice and her independence. She must realize it's okay to take control of one's life and share her thoughts out loud.

For Ren, the finger is what propels him forward to opportunity, but his journey is all about becoming more than a child. He's establishing his character through kindnesses and his decisions. If this book had a hero, Ren would be it for me.

Amidst all this, there's a lot of other stuff going on that adds up to an action-packed book. Most of the activity centers around a local hospital full of European doctors and local support staff. It's here where we find the night tiger prowling around. It's also here where accidents keep happening, random deaths occur, past transgressions are seriously felt, and love is discovered. This is where people are sneaking around, committing crimes, manipulating, and harming each other. This is the underbelly of the story.

The cast of characters partaking in all this action come together to create such a rich story. There's even a little magic tossed in, but its portrayal makes so much sense that it doesn't detract from the realism felt in every corner of this book.

With some great surprises and a lot of powerful emotions, Choo creates a story with depth that imparts a culture and an era in a tangible way. She explores emotion and devotion as ties that bind in both life and death. You finish the book content, and curious for what's next. Even though this is a story, I found myself wondering about the fate of the characters as I finished the last page. What went on to happen?

Go read this if you're looking for something different, and wonderful. It's worth it.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 

Even though this book had a pretty predictable ending, it didn't disappoint. Focused on self-worth and how to eliminate the values people put on you, this was a great story of how overcoming the weight of others is entirely possible if you're willing to look around.

Nora Seed has kinda died. As long as the clock in a very strange library stays at midnight though, there's still hope. With books only about herself, Nora has the special opportunity to experience her other lives, maybe even find a better one. Each book contains the path she'd have taken if she'd made one choice differently. Some lead to good things, some to crazy adventures, and others to more unhappiness than she had in her real life (and that was a lot.)

As she travels, regrets begin to disappear. She realizes that some choices, while still painful, were better than the alternative. All the while, she hovers between life and death in her special midnight library.

Eventually she'll have to decide where she wants to plant her feet. Will she pick a new life, go back to the old one, or die. It's actually a very tough decision to for Nora to make, which speaks to the complexities of regret.

I liked Nora even with all her "issues," even though she gives up at times. She's open to learning about herself, to taking a crazy journey, to really seeing her world. Haig tells a very specific story that has universal appeal with an interesting, nuanced set of characters. We meet the kind old lady/librarian, a demanding father, a troubled sibling, the "bad" boyfriend, and more. They all come into play in Nora's lives and add so much depth.

It's apparent to the reader, even as Nora struggles to learn, where this whole path will lead. I enjoyed that the writing style allowed us to be a few steps ahead of Nora throughout. I'd get excited every time she made a breakthrough, or had an important experience. I wasn't on the journey with her, but was definitely sitting in her cheering section.

A super-fast read -- because it's good and straightforward -- this book immediately engages you on an emotional level. I can see why it's topping all the book lists right now, and I highly recommend it.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

 

Everything about this book hinges on the end. If it's done right, the story will be an intense, emotional read. If done wrong, it will feel overly-contrived and cliche.

At the end, I cried.

Putting a unique spin on fate, In Five Years starts with Dannie. She's a corporate lawyer who's young and hungry. She flourishes in knowing the details, in always having a plan. She knows things, like where to live in NYC, what firm she should work for, when exactly her boyfriend will propose. It's all figured out, until one night she falls asleep for an hour and lives a life five years in the future.

In this premonition nothing is as it should be, and Dannie wakes up in fear of what five years from now will do to her master plan. She can't tell anyone close to her about this vision, not her boyfriend or her absolute best friend, Bella. It's her secret, one she wants to try and prevent so her perfect life can unfold.

Flash forward to almost five years into the future, and Dannie feels like she's dodged the bullet. She's got the job, the fiance, the apartment, but then it all changes. And then it changes again. Each hiccup in her master plan brings her closer to that night she saw in her sleep, but not in the way she expected. At the end of the book, the night plays out exactly as it does in her dream (this isn't a spoiler) with incredibly different circumstances surrounding it. What she dreaded happening for five years might possibly be the night she'd been waiting for.

This is a story about great love and extreme grief. It's about letting yourself to feel big emotions whether or not they allow you to maintain control. Dannie is given a gift to see a moment of her future, and even though she misinterprets it, having the knowledge gives her solace when she needs it most.

This book surprised me in all the best ways. It is beautiful and sad, but powerful. The devotion of the characters was something special to read. You might need a tissue, but this is a good one.

Beach Read by Emily Henry

The thing I don't like about the romance genre is how absurd the stories get. The way characters connect, how everything fits so perfectly into place; it starts feeling icky. I realize the genre is meant for readers to escape reality, but all it ends up doing for me is jumpstart a lot of eye rolling.

Not the case with Beach Read. The coincidences are still there in the narrative, but with enough rough edges, enough baggage that's not interconnected, that it's okay. 

Our hero and heroine are trapped, deep in life's quicksand, in real and heartbreaking ways. That's a good thing. What's even better, they don't rescue each other from it. They buoy each other up because they fight for the right to do it.

This book is romance with glitches, pain, miscommunication, and so many tears. I didn't roll my eyes once. Also, both main characters are writers -- I really liked that.

The meet-cute happens because January has inherited a lake house, from her father, she never knew about. Her first night there, she encounters an annoying and rude neighbor who turns out to be Gus, her writing "rival" from college. He criticised her work when they were just students, and now she's a romance novelist and he's a Writer. They resume a frenemy-type relationship until they realize they can help each other with writer's block.

Pushing each other along to complete their books, things get real. Each character slowly unfolds to the other. Real stories are told. Real feelings shared. [slight spoiler coming up] They realize that it's not the happy ending that matters, but it's experiencing the happy moments as they are that counts.

This book is about love, but it doesn't limit itself to one kind. It's about romantic love, the love you have for your best friend, loving a parent, and finding the will to love after a betrayal. It's a sweet and light read that has purpose and heft. It's an appropriate choice so close to [eye roll] Valentine's Day. It lifts up the too steamy, mostly ridiculous genre of romance as well.

Recommended.