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.
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