Reviews

Follow her home by Steph Cha

Only show reviews with written explanations

categal's review against another edition

4.0

What a summer of fun reads, here's another one.

This book is such a blast: it takes noir tropes and turns them on their heads while at the same time, paying homage to them. It is summertime in LA, and Song is pulled into an investigation by her best friend Luke. Is his Dad having an affair with Lori? She gives drunken Lori a ride home and the investigation begins.

Page turner!

xoxo

pagesofpins's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.0

Fun idea to have a female hard boiled noir detective in a modern setting, but misses its chance to be colorful and funny. Riddled with weird phrases like "I cracked every knuckle I knew I had" and "There is not one painted fingernail of glamour in this entire enterprise."

pennyluisa's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.0

I had this book as my "to read" for awhile. When I started reading I wasn't sure why I picked this book. Its nice that there is an Asian American woman protagonist leading the story (and a mystery novel at that). The author tried to weave the Asian fetishization aspects to the story by sharing her feelings towards photos she came across when she was searching for evidence. Overall the story felt cliche.

johnnyb1954's review against another edition

Go to review page

1.0

Did not finish. Too many Chandleresque elements where the author keeps pointing out, "Hey look, this is something you'd see in a Phillip Marlowe story". Unbelievable plot points. Many distracting long descriptions of irrelevant things. Overuse of similies intended to sound like Chandler but not succeeding.

shelleyrae's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Post-modern pulp mystery perhaps? I'm not exactly sure how to describe Steph Cha's debut novel, Follow Her Home. It introduces Juniper Song, a Gen Y, Korean/American with little ambition and an obsession with Raymond Chandler's hard boiled PI, Phillip Marlowe. When her best friend, Luke, asks her to follow the woman he suspects is having an affair with his father home from a party she is eager to emulate her idol's investigative success. But when Song gets too curious during her stakeout she is knocked unconscious, then discovers a body in her trunk and finds herself at the mercy of a psychopath determined to protect his employer's secrets.

Follow Her Home begins with a simple case of suspected adultery but slowly descends into a tangled web of family dysfunction, murder, blackmail and racial fetishism. This quirky mystery has plenty of dark twists to entertain the reader, though few are unpredictable. Still, the potential is there for Cha to go off script which she does on at least two memorable occasions, both of which I thought redeemed the plot. There is some elasticity in the credibility of events, not the least being Song's reluctance to involve the police the moment she found a dead body in her car.

Told in the first person, Follow Her Home also establishes Juniper's back story - her relationship with her immigrant single mother, her friendship with Luke and Diego and the tragic fate of her sister, Iris. The flashbacks are sometimes disruptive but are the only means we have to learn about Song and her drive to act as an amateur sleuth, despite being so woefully out of her depth.

The ending of Follow Her Home is as bittersweet as any of Marlowe's cases, Song may solve the mystery but not without a personal cost. While I didn't fall in love with this story or it's protagonist, I liked it's unusual edge and I'm interested to see how Steph Cha builds on it.

kiskadee321's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

I could not put this book down. A friend saw me reading Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep last summer and recommended I check out Steph Cha's book. I kind of enjoyed The Big Sleep, but wasn't over the moon. Although I enjoy P.I. movies, something about Chandler's literary private eye didn't sit right with me -- plus that sort of requisite femme fatale character and Marlowe's fear/hatred of women bothered me.

I hesitated for over six months to pick up Follow Her Home. It was so much more enjoyable than The Big Sleep. Maybe it's because I find Song, a twentysomething woman, much more compelling and relatable than any Marlowe could ever be to me. It does everything that noir should do without the drawbacks of some of the older works (which I know that Ms. Cha is a fan of). Even better, it's a mystery with an ending that is satisfying.

Great work, Ms. Cha. I will definitely be on the lookout for any future adventures of Song.