The Saturday Morning Post (No. 88) EXTRA! EXTRA!

HAVING JUST WRITTEN MY SATURDAY MORNING POST # 100, I THINK I BETTER SERVE UP A FEW EXTRA EDITIONS, HENCE THIS SPECIAL SUNDAY EDITION. WHILE I LIKE HAVING A BIT OF A BACKLOG SO THAT I DON'T FEEL PRESSURE TO READ A BOOK JUST TO FILL A BLOG SPOT, A THREE MONTH PLUS BACKLOG IS GETTING RATHER LONG.

Having read The Fox Wife by this author earlier in the year, and enjoyed it, I placed a hold on the ebook below in my local library system, and this week, (three months ago - editor) it became available. So was the six plus month worth the wait?

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo  C

This book is likely significantly better than my grade, because for me, it included several things that I am not a fan of. The first is the narration format which alternates chapters between two point of view characters, one a first person narration, and the other third person. Each of these are the two strands of the story that the author twists together until they combine. Choo used this same technique in The Fox Wife, and I wasn't a fan of it there either. Secondly, I am not a fan of dream sequences, and they play a significant part in this story. And thirdly, there are ghosts, which in this story, are people not able, or willing, to leave the living world behind just yet. Plus there is the title weretiger, i.e. a person who can turn into a tiger, or maybe a  tiger that can turn into a person. All of which stretches my credibility a bit beyond its breaking point. I'm not much of a lad for magic in general. All of which is to say that you should take my grade with even more skepticism than usual, as this book is, I believe, a very well regarded book. It just wasn't quite the book for me.

That said, I have to say that once again it was a well researched book, one that, I think, brought its exotic setting, Malaysia in the 1930's, to life. Plus, it had characters that you could root for, both of these characteristics are ones which are things that make for a good book for me. It is well written, and yet, I have to admit that I found myself skim reading parts of it - it simply ran on too long and I found it to be too, well, unfocused for my taste. It has its magical realism plotline, with weretigers, dead people communicating with the living via dreams, as it explored the superstitions and customs of the region. It is also something of a thriller, in that one of the plot lines required a character to do something within 49 days or dire results happen. It also has a strong domestic plotline with family tensions, as well as a budding romance, and by golly, a murderer mystery as well, though you'd never know it until the end. In short, there was simply too much going on for my simple tastes.

Still, if it sounds intriguing to you, I have no problem recommending it. I liked her The Fox Wife much better, but then I am more familiar with China than I am with Southeast Asia, and while fox spirits are no less magical, or believable, than weretigers, they are more familiar to me. I am now interested in reading her debut novel The Ghost Bride, but I'd have to drive ten minutes to the library to pick up a paper version of it. Bummer.