Reviews

Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin

wenwanzhao's review against another edition

5.0

This book is really amazing. It tells this beautiful story about this village, that a boy named Rendi arrives in. In the beginning, we don't know a lot about the characters, or the village, but then this women arrives, and she is fantastic at story telling. She starts telling these stories, and everything spins together so perfectly! I love this book, it feels like a breath of fresh air. I would definitely recommend this book because it's just so lovely.

noemi's review against another edition

5.0

A tale of leaving and returning, of tigers and humans, anger and forgiveness. More than once it brought tears to my eyes - although it was written for children, the questions at the heart of this book are ones we still grapple with as adults, especially those of us who were raised in the tiger's den.

This book asks us who we become when we hold on to our anger, and what we create when we treat others with fear, or with kindness. Warning for both spoilers and possible triggers (allusion to domestic abuse):

Coming from an abusive home, I was distressed by the universality of the final message of forgiveness and return. While I agree that holding on to our anger hurts us more than it hurts our abusers, I think sometimes forgiveness must be done from a distance, if at all. Some of the returns felt right - there had been words or deeds done in anger, in the context of a mostly loving home, such as the case of Chao's and Yan's families. But I found the story of Chang and WangYi distressing - feeding into the idea that a woman must take a man back if he has truly changed (which, translated into real life, is hard to distinguish from manipulation). And the idea of Rendi returning to his family because his abusive father loves and misses him... It just hit a little too close to home. His (and my father's) sorrow and regret may be real, but the abuser's feelings should not take precedence over another's safety.

I listened to the audiobook, and Kim Mai Guest's narration brings Lin's book beautifully to life. There's a dreaminess to the narration that matches the blurring between realism and myth. I love the bits of music that precede each story-within-the-story. I also took a look at the written book, because there are beautiful illustrations throughout the book. I'm sure the illustrations are even more meaningful to those able to read the Chinese characters in them. Whichever method you choose to read this book, you can't go wrong. I look forward to reading more books by Grace Lin, including the companion piece, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

alys's review against another edition

4.0

Ivan and I listened to this, and we both agreed that we liked Where the Mountain Meets the Moon better. I think it's because Minli has an active quest - she spends the entire book trying to do something, and then realizes over the course of her quest that it's a false goal, that she's learned something along the way. Whereas in this book Rendi has essentially stagnated, and it's only when those lessons are essentially forced upon him that he changes. It effects the momentum of the whole book.

That's not to say that we didn't still enjoy the book thoroughly, and that we're not waiting eagerly for the next in the trilogy to be published this fall. It's hard to be a sequel to such a stunning book as Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, because comparisons are both inevitable and almost unfair.

bbliophile's review against another edition

4.0

I got a little bit confused when it came to the character's and who's who in this one, but I still liked it a lot. And I loved seeing how all of these stories are interwoven with each other.

areaderheart's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0