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A review by deadnberried
Ghost Month by Ed Lin
3.0
I picked this book up at a library book sale thinking it was going to actually involve ghosts or the supernatural, but it does not. (The sale was crowded, the books not really organized, so I just snatched some things that looked interesting without researching plots)
The edition I picked up was an unedited galley, so I'm not sure how much it changed from the edition I read to the final. I found the story fairly slow moving, bogged down with lengthy asides about Taiwanese culture, especially involving those of native/Chinese/Japanese lineage, which didn't really figure into the mystery at hand: Who murdered Jing-nan's fiance?
The main character's main defining characteristic is that he's been really into Joy Division since discovering them in middle school, and he references this interest a lot, but the music/lyrics/themes from the music or the history of the band also have no bearing on the plot. Basically this author talked about several 'guns on the table', and then left them sitting there. Luckily he doesn't exacerbate this tendency by also making the book lengthy.
It was a meh read, mainly valuable because of what you learn about Taiwan along the way.
The edition I picked up was an unedited galley, so I'm not sure how much it changed from the edition I read to the final. I found the story fairly slow moving, bogged down with lengthy asides about Taiwanese culture, especially involving those of native/Chinese/Japanese lineage, which didn't really figure into the mystery at hand: Who murdered Jing-nan's fiance?
The main character's main defining characteristic is that he's been really into Joy Division since discovering them in middle school, and he references this interest a lot, but the music/lyrics/themes from the music or the history of the band also have no bearing on the plot. Basically this author talked about several 'guns on the table', and then left them sitting there. Luckily he doesn't exacerbate this tendency by also making the book lengthy.
It was a meh read, mainly valuable because of what you learn about Taiwan along the way.