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A review by usbsticky
The Borrowed by Chan Ho-Kei
5.0
Edit: This is my new review after finishing the book. This is a book of short stories revolving around a policeman in the former British colony of HK. The short story timelines weirdly goes backwards from when the detective is retired and comatose to when he was a young policeman. I thought there would be some twist tying it together but it really doesn't.
I initially gave the book 2 stars and dnf'd it because the first story went on too long and the twists were too many. They took over the story. I mean, just give us a good story; you know you can have a great story without twists, right?
But then I decided to read the other stories. The writing is not bad and grows on you. The character build up is pretty good and the plots are not bad either. But for some reason, the author decides that every story has to have one or more twists. So I like the book kinda despite of the twists. Some of the twists are good, some are forced.
Overall I liked the book because of the setting of HK, the easy to read writing and the characters. I didn't like the backwards chronology. But at the end of the book I liked it so much that I got the second book as well. And also a shout out to the translator, the book was written in Chinese and the translator did a bang up job, well done to both.
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Was a book recommendation from this website or my library. Had an interesting premise and the first quarter of the book was interesting.
Spoilers below:
The book starts off with a comatose retired Hong Kong detective superintendent who is able to help his protege solve a case from his bed using a EEG (electroencephalogram) device. The inspector brings all the suspects to the hospital room where the whole case is narrated for the super (and us) and he is able to work through the case using Yes or No responses. That was pretty interesting and I thought that would be it but the story continues with a lot more twists and turns of the plot but I kinda lost interest.
I decided to dnf the book right there. But now writing the review I realize that the book is made of short stories and that was just the first one and that particular story did not continue for 10 more chapters of the same plot twists. I will check out the other stories and finish this review later.
I initially gave the book 2 stars and dnf'd it because the first story went on too long and the twists were too many. They took over the story. I mean, just give us a good story; you know you can have a great story without twists, right?
But then I decided to read the other stories. The writing is not bad and grows on you. The character build up is pretty good and the plots are not bad either. But for some reason, the author decides that every story has to have one or more twists. So I like the book kinda despite of the twists. Some of the twists are good, some are forced.
Overall I liked the book because of the setting of HK, the easy to read writing and the characters. I didn't like the backwards chronology. But at the end of the book I liked it so much that I got the second book as well. And also a shout out to the translator, the book was written in Chinese and the translator did a bang up job, well done to both.
---------------
Was a book recommendation from this website or my library. Had an interesting premise and the first quarter of the book was interesting.
Spoilers below:
The book starts off with a comatose retired Hong Kong detective superintendent who is able to help his protege solve a case from his bed using a EEG (electroencephalogram) device. The inspector brings all the suspects to the hospital room where the whole case is narrated for the super (and us) and he is able to work through the case using Yes or No responses. That was pretty interesting and I thought that would be it but the story continues with a lot more twists and turns of the plot but I kinda lost interest.
I decided to dnf the book right there. But now writing the review I realize that the book is made of short stories and that was just the first one and that particular story did not continue for 10 more chapters of the same plot twists. I will check out the other stories and finish this review later.