Reviews - The Ghost Bride | The StoryGraph

2.18k reviews for:

The Ghost Bride

Yangsze Choo

3.77 AVERAGE

mariah123456's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

wjreadsbooks's review against another edition

2.0

The Ghost Bride has many weaknesses and although it started off promisingly enough,it fails to deliver and there were so many illogical and selfish things that Li Lan does that really turned me off the book about midway through. Nevertheless I still completed the book and the ending, well, the ending really does leave much to be desired.

Li Lan is the daughter of a family that's about to go bankrupt, with her father being more concerned about his books and his opium than in seeking a good marriage for his only daughter. The rich Lim family has asked for Li Lan to enter into a ghost marriage with their recently deceased heir while at the same time, Li Lan has set eyes upon Tian Bai (the new heir to the Lim enterprise) and has developed a massive crush on him. The setting is in colonial Malaya and the ideology is very traditional, in that Li Lan has to make a good marriage in order to set up a comfortable lifestyle for herself. And the belief in ghosts, in respecting the dead and making offerings is still very strong. A ghost marriage is a rather dreadful thing and Li Lan's reluctant to enter into one. Unfortunately, her ghostly suitor has other plans and she soon finds her dreams haunted by his menacing presence every night.

The novel's strength is definitely in capturing the description of colonial Malaya, with Yangsze Choo's description of the popular snacks, the beliefs of the day and the communications between different people being very accurate. I was really excited when I had first started reading the book, with the description hitting very close to home for me, especially about the superstitions that people had (and still have) as well as the chosen topic of ghost marriages. This subject isn't something that very familiar to me, although I've heard a little about it from some television programmes.

Unfortunately, the characters in The Ghost Bride behave so irrationally and their motivations are so selfish that it makes it very difficult to read the book. Li Lan is a major problem, given that she's our protagonist. I had started off finding her behaviour very much like an average teenage girl in colonial Malaya, who yearns for some paternal affection and to make a good marriage of her own so as to live a better life. However, the depiction of how she's irresistibly drawn towards Tian Bai after a short encounter struck me too much like a form of insta-love because she knows so little about him and yet, seems to have fallen so deeply for.

Spoiler

And what is up with that short allusion to how Tian Bai had had another relationship before Li Lan that makes her so certain that he would never be hers? I didn't really understand how that factored into her willingness to be with Er Lang instead. I don't know what else she expected of Tian Bai, given that he's so much older than her, it's to be expected that he's had other relationships before meeting her. I thought it was more problematic that he hadn't known her well enough to realize that her body had been possessed rather than the fact that he had another relationship before her.

Buying into the strong connection between Tian Bai and Li Lan was a rather integral part of the book because Tian Bai's supposed to be this wholesome, wonderful alternative to Lim Tian Ching. Unfortunately I didn't buy that.

Even taking that into account, Li Lan's choices throughout the novel continue to be very poor, especially after she enters the ghostly realm.

Spoiler

I found this part of the novel to be very hard to stomach. I kept wondering why she never sought out the medium to begin with. And her relationship with Er Lang was a bit abrupt, since I never understood what he saw in Li Lan to begin with. His offer of marriage was a bit surprising as well.

The multiple plot strands were also an issue and I think Yangtze Choo may have bitten off more than she could chew with that one. There were just so many things going on:
1. Lim Tian Ching and why he was haunting her. And how was he able to do this
2. The possibility of a corrupt underworld official and who it could have been
3. Who really killed Lim Tian Ching? Was it Tian Bai as he had suspected or somebody else
4. What was Li Lan's mother really like? Was she cruel or as sweet as her Ah Mah and father had mentioned?
5. What did Er Lang look like?
And so on.

While the premise of the tale was interesting, I think the author would have benefited from editing the novel more and choosing on the main strands of the plot that she wanted to direct readers' attention towards. The relationship between Tian Bai and Li Lan could definitely have been strengthened more in order to make us buy into the relationship. Li Lan's lack of character growth (from jumping into another relationship before she seemed to get to know the guy well) was also disappointing.

lmckensie's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

shaynek5's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

alexandrathgr8's review against another edition

2.0

I wanted to like this, I really did. The storyline is really interesting and I couldn’t DNF it because I was so curious but I could *not* get into it. I don’t know if it was the writing style or what but it simply never clicked for me. A shame.