Reviews

The Wicked and the Willing by Lianyu Tan

the_book_bear's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Really strong atmospheric start. I found myself less gripped as we reached the middle. I didn’t love the pick-your-own-ending. I would have understood from the character’s POV why she might have picked to stay in the abusive relationship, and maybe dark romances just aren’t for me, but I don’t get why anyone reading it would want to pick one of the two possible endings. I did love how it was a world I have never read about before (1920s Singapore) and the writing was good, so I do intend to read the author’s other books. MASSIVE trigger warning for SA in the present and past. 

sopie's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

keepthisholykiss's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

gingerbread_void's review

3.0

I was sold on this book as soon as I read the premise. This book is definitely dark and heavy and has several serious trigger warning so please be aware of those before diving into this book.
This book was great. It was definitely dark and had an eery feeling throughout the book. I was constant eager to find out what would happen.

lezreadalot's review against another edition

4.0

She wanted her like a knife in the belly, like bamboo slivers beneath her nails, all biting pain and wretched agony, begging for the sweet void of release.

4.5 stars. #TeamPoLam. Like, 1000%.

This was a book that scared me; I'm willing to try dark romance, but all my various forays into the genre haven't been the most successful. And this book in particular had a lot of content warnings attached to it, and it has a love triangle, and all of that made me think, 'Nah, not for me.' But after hearing so many great things about the author's writing and being intrigued by the premise, I decided to give it a go, and this was one of those scenarios where pushing my own boundaries worked out for the best.

Our main character is Gean Choo, a 19 year old orphan in 1920s Singapore who takes a job as a maid for a wealthy white woman. Mrs. Edevane is mysterious and alluring, as is Po Lam, the stoic major-domo of the estate. We get all three POVs, and it soon comes to light that Mrs. Edevane is a vampire, Po Lam procures and then gets rid of one body for her per month, and Gean Choo is meant to be fattened up as an eventual sacrifice. What I love most about this story is how complex all of the character work is. No one is without nuance, no one is completely good, and no one is completely evil. (Although, as will become clear throughout my review, there's definitely one person who I like less than the others.) There's an eerie gothic feel in those early chapters that I absolutely adored, and Gean Choo is the young, unknowing character bumbling through it all. She has so much compassion, and so much goodwill, and it's taken advantage of constantly, which is a little wretched to read. But she isn't completely innocent, and the moments where she grasps for and is able to hold on to her autonomy and her pleasure are definite bright spots and I was so happy for her. And it's nice to be able to say that I was happy for Gean Choo, because this girl goes through so much.  

Many of my thoughts are spoilery, so, spoiler cut!

Spoiler

Verity Edevane is such an interesting character and in most other situations that she would be absolute catnip for me. She's sexy, alluring, dominant, and pretty mean. The cruelty is where she loses me. She spends most of the book clutching for this moral high ground, refusing to eat more than one person per month, but she's clearly a hypocrite. And I love how the book treats with that, both from her POV and the POV of others. That "only eat one person per month" thing barely lasts for the first quarter. When we find out why she's on this diet, it's definitely for admirable reasons, and it shows what a bind that she is in as a vampire, given the limited options for her. Part of her storyline involves a male vampire trying to take away her power and agency, when she's fought so hard to attain those things. Verity also Goes Through it. But her entire attitude towards Gean Choo, Po Lam and her entire staff is so staunchly colonial, so obviously imperialist, and while I think she's such a fascinating character, she evoked more horror in me than anything else. Intentionally so! I do think that she loves Gean Choo, but it's a love that's so clearly proprietary, and that becomes clear from the very first moment that she refuses to learn how to say Gean Choo's name, and instead defaults to calling her 'Pearl'. Along with... all her other behaviour. In the earlier half of the book, I thought this was scary enough, with all the casual ways that Verity just degrades and denigrates Gean Choo, and tramples over her will. (And again, Gean Choo is far from vanilla, and she's clearly into some of those things... up to a point.) But in the latter half of the book, things get real dark. Yikes! There's going into a jealous rage and then there's... that.  

Po Lam is another really fascinating character. She's entirely complicit in who knows how many murders of innocent people, and she's cultivated a coldness and stoicism that's clearly in place partly to protect her own heart and self-interest. She also has a family that she's supporting with her wages. But as the book went on, I just fell so deeply and completely in love with her. It definitely helps that her romance with Gean Choo is the more slow burn of the two, and as always, I find slow burn to be absolutely superior. She's a completely romantic figure, in the ways that she's trying to help save the Gean Choo from this greater evil, but she isn't romanticised at all. If that makes sense? Her character also becomes a lot easier to understand when we find out exactly what kind of noose Verity has around her neck: obligation for having saved her so many years ago. I don't know. I will always be more attracted to quote/unquote "good" characters, but even more so to characters who are not good, who are aware that they have done bad things, but in the end, they strive to be better. And that's Po Lam to me. I love her with my whole heart. Heroic butch excellence.  

There is so much that I love about this book, but one thing that's sticking in my mind is the fact that, again, Gean Choo is clearly into some dark sexual stuff. She enjoys some of the powerplay inherent in her relationship with Verity. And I'm really glad that the author did not set up a dichotomy between ~evil, kinky Verity~ and ~good, vanilla Po Lam~. Because in the Po Lam ending, Gean Choo specifically asks Po Lam to be rough and degrading with her. And that's the important part. She asks for it and Po Lam delivers. I love that Po Lam had this little moral crisis about it, because she enjoyed being rough with Gean Choo. And from that we get the whole conversation or the whole implication of kink not being an inherently bad thing if there are boundaries and if the people involved have discussions about it. I'm just happy for Gean Choo that she gets a loving partner, and she also gets her rough, CNC-flavoured sex, without being attached to a colonialist nightmare of a woman who occasionally slings around racist epithets. Yikes!  

The choose your own ending is, of course, the most unique part of this book, and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. The narrative only diverges at the very end, and so it's necessary that the reader is able to believe that Gean Choo would go in one of these polar opposite directions. I think that aspect was really well done. I'm #TeamPoLam all the way, but I absolutely understand the allure of Verity for Gean Choo and other readers. The fact that the author got me to sympathise with her even a little bit says a lot. I feel like I could write essays about Verity Edevane. But I suppose it doesn't need to be said: I clearly prefer the Po Lam ending. It's the only reason why I'm putting the romance tag on this at all.

 

Listened to the audiobook as read by Emily Woo Zeller, and I completely fell in love with it. She absolutely excelled at making this a terrifying, heartrending, but also sensual listen, and I ate every little bit of it up. Tan has a writing style that's very lyrical but also very easy to get into, and I was swept away by the setting. I'm so glad I took a chance on this book. I wouldn't call it a favourite because there are just some things about it that aren't for me, but I ended up liking it so much more than I expected to. Now I'm definitely going to read the author's debut at some point, because I was more scared of this one than I was of that.  

Content warnings:

Spoiler

a comprehensive list is available at the author's website, but short version: rape, violence, torture, suicide, death, gore, recollection of child sexual abuse.

If Po Lam stayed, if she tried to hold this together, whatever this was, it would mean living with those scars, accepting them, and loving their bearer all the same.

firefox's review against another edition

5.0

The dual ending kinda made it a 5 star for me. This ARC took place over 1927-1928 Singapore with Vampires.
It has very mature and dark content (I mean it, dark content that almost made me dnf)

please don't go into this blind, check CWs beforehand.

spacebats's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

itslaur's review against another edition

4.0

if u want some dark gothic lesbian vampire shit with gore and body horror look no further

definitely not for everyone but i did enjoy reading it, especially when i got to the two possible endings & had to choose

polarbear2023's review

literally bad writing and it's boring me

banrions's review against another edition

4.0

Ohhh baby, was this fun. Probably not most people’s first reactions to such dark horror vibes, but I had a blast.

When I heard this was gonna be vampire 1920s gothic horror romance I was very excited, and it absolutely lived up to that initial excitement. I’m not gonna lie, I knew going into it I was almost def gonna be on #TeamVerity, and I was right. Despite all of it, I found her to be a fascinating character and really enjoyed her pov chapters. I… was not as into Po Lam, she’s just not the type of character I usually go for, and she frustrated me at times. She just seemed so hypocritical about her own relationship with Verity and what she chose to do over for her the years, idk. And (this might have just been more of a personal thing) but I didn’t really get the connection between her and Gean Choo. I certainly didn’t hate it, but I was def Team Verity. Seeing 1920s Singapore was really cool, as it’s not a place or time in history that I knew too much about going in.

I really liked the chose your own ending aspect at the end, as someone who recently really got into reading and playing interactive fiction games, this was a fun little addition. I obviously read them all after picking Verity first and really liked seeing the differences in all three (including the one newsletter subscribes get for free, so sign up for the third ‘closest to the original idea the author had’ ending too!). I think the Verity choice is still my favorite, because I love me a dark horror vibe, but the newsletter one packs a punch too. All in all, if you like horror, dark romance, vampires, or just some fascinating and complex characters and dynamics, this one is for you!

(If you don’t like dark romance, this might not be for you, because things def aren’t meant to be aspirational here).

I think after this one and the fist Hades/Persephone retelling that I also really liked, this is def a ‘check out everything they put out’ author, for me. And happened to luck out and get this book for free in a giveaway, and that always makes it feel just that much more special.