A review by greymalkin
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I loved the premise and sparring between the main character and her grandmother.  And it was an all too rare delight to immerse in a culturally different linguistic rhythm of speech.  But Jess was not fun to spend time with.  The secret-keeping drove me crazy.  It didn't seem like there was much point other than to stretch out plot points. 
I wish that there had been more about the rest of the life in Malaysia, something to contrast all the stuff that Jess is going through.  And she's such a terrible girlfriend, I didn't see the chemistry, nor why the other girl stuck around as long as she did.  I would have loved more about Ah Ma, or the guy, or Ah Ku, or the girlfriend, or her parents, or basically almost any one else, they were all so much more interesting to me.  The ending was pretty good on the ghosts stuff, but I wish that we'd actually been able to see more of a pay off for Jess' coming out.  Not because we are owed that, but because I wanted to see Jess's parents surprise Jess.
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