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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
Disappointing! I was on board for the flowery, painted language of it all but found it did nothing to subvert the Wild West genre in the way I thought it would. Just another cowboy story about vengeance and killing people about it.
This book was an interesting mashup of many different tropes. A classic western where a wronged man finds his enemies one by one in a quest for revenge. A strange crew of showpeople who really can perform miracles. Untrustworthy criminals who are allies one moment and enemies the next. A blind prophet. It all comes together in a way that is engaging, but also a little too stilted. Our main man, Ming Tsu, has many opportunities to grow and change as a character, but he really doesn't. The other characters are also a bit flat, and seem to exist only to either help Ming along or be killed by him. So for me, several aspects of this novel that were never going to be completely satisfying.
At the same time, there are really stunning moments in this book. Tom Lin's writing is fabulous, and his descriptions of landscapes, parched throats, dead bodies, and tired horses are captivating. His musings on memory, the body, and the passage of time are also pushing at something deeper than a traditional western yarn. I'll be on the lookout for whatever he writes next.
At the same time, there are really stunning moments in this book. Tom Lin's writing is fabulous, and his descriptions of landscapes, parched throats, dead bodies, and tired horses are captivating. His musings on memory, the body, and the passage of time are also pushing at something deeper than a traditional western yarn. I'll be on the lookout for whatever he writes next.
A nice western that I probably zoned out too much during the audio of.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was uncomfortable and I got about 100 pages in before I gave up. I‘d just finished “She Who Becomes the Sun” and was hungry for more literature written by Asian authors about Asian characters. I saw this book and thought it’d be good, but it is hardly a reimagining of a western classic. It’s just a western classic, complete with outdated racist tropes and slurs, lack of character depth and nothing to really situate the reader into Tsu’s reality. Without the occasional reference to Tsu by demeaning names, you might forget he’s Chinese.
I received a copy of this book through Goodreads Giveaways. I've never read a Western before but have dabbled with some more modern Western movie/TV releases that I've enjoyed. This had all the good elements of an old-timey Western (various outlaws, gun fights, horses, distinctive unforgiving landscape, a little bit of sex) with a new, relevant protagonist and non-traditional cast of characters that I really liked (including a band of supes that make their living as a traveling side show that Ming encounters on his travels and gets hired to protect). The mystical and/or supernatural plays a critical role in the book without completely overpowering it.
Tom Lin drew attention to modern racism in American society with the type of racism that troubled the protagonist in this book: namely Ming is placed into a box labeled "Chinese immigrant who is working on building the railroad" (and therefore viewed as lesser-than) by most people, when in reality that's far from the truth. He was born in America to Chinese parents, but was raised by white people and only speaks English. This provoked me to think more about modern America and reminded me of the opening of Ronald Takaki's book [b:A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America|37564|A Different Mirror A History of Multicultural America|Ronald Takaki|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439467571l/37564._SY75_.jpg|37420] where Takaki regularly encountered people who automatically assumed him a foreigner based on his Asian appearance despite the fact that he was born in America and was a celebrated and accomplished PhD and professor at Berkeley. Kudos to Lin for incorporating this as a prominent aspect of the plot that requires the reader to confront some of their own assumptions about other people in their everyday life.
I also want to note that I enjoyed the author's writing style and use of punctuation or lack thereof in certain scenarios to conjure up different feelings/convey experiences for the main character.
Ok so who's going to adapt this into a film now? I'd be into it.
Tom Lin drew attention to modern racism in American society with the type of racism that troubled the protagonist in this book: namely Ming is placed into a box labeled "Chinese immigrant who is working on building the railroad" (and therefore viewed as lesser-than) by most people, when in reality that's far from the truth. He was born in America to Chinese parents, but was raised by white people and only speaks English. This provoked me to think more about modern America and reminded me of the opening of Ronald Takaki's book [b:A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America|37564|A Different Mirror A History of Multicultural America|Ronald Takaki|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439467571l/37564._SY75_.jpg|37420] where Takaki regularly encountered people who automatically assumed him a foreigner based on his Asian appearance despite the fact that he was born in America and was a celebrated and accomplished PhD and professor at Berkeley. Kudos to Lin for incorporating this as a prominent aspect of the plot that requires the reader to confront some of their own assumptions about other people in their everyday life.
I also want to note that I enjoyed the author's writing style and use of punctuation or lack thereof in certain scenarios to conjure up different feelings/convey experiences for the main character.
Ok so who's going to adapt this into a film now? I'd be into it.
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Very action packed book! The main character wasn't all that interesting because he was pretty one track minded and didn't think too critically about his goals. But all the characters and the magic realism was pretty fantastic!
Enjoyed everything but the ending. Incredibly cinematic. Hope it makes it to the big screen
slow-paced