Asian readathon wrap-up

I'm glad I participated in this readathon. I've been in a long reading slump. It's not like I haven't read anything at all, but I've read only books or fics that require no brain cells or emotional involvement and can be completely forgotten in a day. And this month reminded me why I love good books that make you feel things and give you aesthetic pleasure, and how you need to change optics a bit for every new book because all of them are different and have their own voice (well, except The Poppy War and The Gilded Wolves, they were pretty generic). 

Overall I've read 12 books, which is a lot for me. I've changed two books out of five I've planned to read. I wasn't in a mood to read The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy and I DNFed People With Solar Reins by Ariadna Borisova at 15% because almost nothing happens in this 15%. It was very boring, and I understand that a book series can start slow, but there were two small episodes valuable for the main plot in this 15%. Also, I didn't like its writing style. I understand that folklore fantasy requires a writing style that reminds of folktales and fables, but Ariadna Borisova overdoes it. You don't immerse in a fable-like narration, you see a modern author who tries too hard. 

I really glad I found The Crystal Ribbon through this readathon, I usually don't read middle-grade books, and I think the only middle-grade books that I still enjoy are books written by Frances Hardinge, and they are pretty dark too.

So, my final list: 

1) Read any book by an Asian author.

Playing with stones by Maria Fedotova (Even)

Very nice children's book. 

2) Read a book featuring an Asian character or written by an Asian author who you can relate to.

The Idiot by Elif Batuman (Turkish)

Super relatable, but I hate to be called out like this.

3) Read a book featuring an Asian character or written by an Asian author who is different from you.

The Plotters by Kim Un-su (Korean)

This is an exact type of dark humor I like. 

4) Read a book recommended by an Asian.

The Boat SBS (Vietnamese)

This was as good as Cindy described it.

5) Read a group book

Little Fires Everywhere by Сeleste Ng (Chinese)

Good book with great potential for holywars. 

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan

It was even heavier than I expected.

This story has two plotlines: one of them takes place in modern days (well, it was written back in 2001, not so modern anymore) in the US and the other one back in the 1930s-1940s in China. In modern times there is a woman named Pearl, a daughter of Chinese immigrants, who can't tell her mother about her multiple sclerosis, and her mother, Winny can't tell her about her life back in China when she was younger. Winny's friend, Helen, is convinced she will die soon. She encourages Winny to tell her story to Pearl, because both Helen and Winny keep each other's secrets from the past, and Helen doesn't want to die with all these untold stories.

I love how both Winny and Helen aren't these pure good heroic women, they both your regular annoying grannies, they aren't pleasant people, they definitely very far from being woke and self-conscious. It's a thing I love in historical fiction: I prefer to read about regular people, who aren't "I'm not like other girls, I'm different", they are just part of society, with all its bullshit in their heads. In my opinion, it's a more honest way to portray main characters in historical fiction, without making them woke and modern to make them more relatable to the modern audience. Winny tells us a couple of times how she believed in everything society told her and how she can't imagine doing something differently. She was in an abusive relationship with her husband, but she believed it's "ok" and she needs to deal with it. Amy Tan is very good at portraying abusing relationships and how an abused person can't escape them, and how patriarchy makes it extremely easy for women to enter abusive relationships and hard to escape them. Also, this book explores this weird kind of friendship that forms because of circumstances not because of common interests and so on. I rarely see relationships like this in the media.

A big part of the book dedicated to describing the main characters' life during WWII. It doesn't have any "horrors of war" in a way they usually described in the literature, but this part of the book reminds me a lot about stories my grandmother told me. Especially in the part where they were under air attack so frequently, they stop caring.

For my full enjoyment, this book was too heavy on the historical fiction side. Usually, I love this type of the story, "thank god we live in the 21st century" (I wanted to write "2020" but with everything going on in the world I'm not sure anymore), but usually I prefer historical fiction mixed with something: detective, thriller, romance or fantasy.

Also, for me the plot in the present time was a bit underdeveloped, it pales in comparison to Winny's plot. The relationship between Winny and Pearl was extremely believable, but I think their conflict ended too quickly (especially after this rich and nuanced story of Winny). But overall writing was good and I really liked the main characters and their complicated relationships.

4 out of 5 stars.

The Boat SBS

I have mixed feelings about this one.

The story feels too plain and underdeveloped for me. Seems like it doesn't have any layers besides telling us about refugees. Not to sound like an asshole, but regarding the plot, I was like "Well, traveling to another country as a refugee is sucks, and what?" It's not like a story isn't worth telling, but it wasn't impressive. As you can see, I can't even write about this story more than a couple of sentences.

Art is another thing. As a comic, The Boat is done beautifully. As I said in my first post, I've heard about it in Cindy's wrap-up, and she was very enthusiastic about it. I expected a lot, but this comic was even better then I imagined it to be. Sound design, art, animation - everything was done very well, with huge attention to details. I loved how panels were swinging with the boat, and how there were colors other than black and white only when somebody was singing a song. I really liked interactive elements, and the overall comic was very immersive. The team working on it did a great job, it's really a work of art. Also, a think this comic did a good job of educating readers about Vietnamese refugees.

4 out of 5 stars, because I can't give it less for such a purely aesthetic pleasure.

The Crystal Ribbon by Celeste Lim

I planned to read something in English and accidentally found this book, and it's tragically underhyped. It has only ~300 ratings on Goodreads and less than 100 reviews. 

The story takes place in medieval China. The main character, Li Jing, is from a peasant family, and the life of poor people in medieval times sucked. 

It's more a historical novel than a fantasy novel. Yes, there are some magical elements in it, but they are subtly ingrained in historical narrative and feel like a part of it because people in this time genuinely believed in all these folklore characters. It actually reminds me of Russian fantasy writer Maria Semenova, who writes both regular fantasy and these mythological historical novels. 

The novel itself focused on Li Jing's character developments and her attempts to find herself in a world, where lives of people can be traded, especially the lives of young maidens, who can be sold as a bride for dowry. This is exactly what happens to Li Jing, and at the age of 11, she goes to another town, to the family of her little husband (he is about three years old as I remember), where she is treated like a servant and then sold to a brothel. 

Yes, it's pretty dark for a middle-grade book, but overall quite optimistic. 

One of the reviews on Goodreads says it's Amy Tan for children, and since I've read The Kitchen God's Wife as the last book for my Asian readathon, I can agree. Celeste Lim is very good at showing how patriarchy affects a woman's life and how class inequality affects everyone. The novel has this clear picture of social inequality that lacks in other fantasy books I've read this month (despite both of them claims to have said inequality), it is depicted vividly and affects all the characters, even people, who seem to be in a place of privilege at the beginning. 

I really love Li Jing. She is smart and brave, but isn't one of that "strong female characters", overpowered and totally unaffected with all the bullshit society tries to feed her. Li Jing is a regular girl, who feel the disconnect between what she actually feels and what she is supposed to feel according to society. There are a lot of her inner struggles in this book, especially regarding her relationship with family: she loves them but they sold her as a bride to people who treat her badly, and sometimes she hates them for it. I like how at every place Li Jing goes she meets both good people and bad people, and they don't become a hivemind, and there are no situations where everyone is against the main character: yes, her life is hard, but there are people, who understand her. Descriptions of the horrible life of a young woman in medieval times didn't turn into suffering for the sake of suffering, it naturally exists as a part of Li Jing character growth. 

And I really want to talk about how good the novel was written. There is a plotline in the second part that feels a bit forced and some weird word choices, but overall it's just very good. It's a children's book, and there is a lot of information about life in ancient China right in the text, but it doesn't seem unnatural and forced, the writing is very immersive. You don't see here a modern writer who judges characters from their modern point of view, you live with Li Jing and look from her point of view. Also, I really appreciate how the author weaves elements of folktales into her book. It isn't just characters from folktales appearing in the book, there are structural elements of a fairytale in the plot, and I think it's a very good decision for that kind of story. 

I think this book is pretty suitable for adults too, especially if you haven't read anything about ancient China before and never read Chinese fantasy. 

4,5 out of 5 stars, I really enjoyed it.