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mangocult 's review for:
Black Water Sister
by Zen Cho
Black Water sister starts out strong, but for me, it just doesn't quite deliver on what is an incredibly intriguing premise. This might be a rare example of a story that would've been better suited to literary fiction rather than fantasy.
I loved the illustration of Malaysia and its neighbors around the South China Sea: the social culture and customs are very neatly shown without being told, and the descriptions of architecture and food were invigorating, but there were times that the implementation of the local mythology felt awkward and squished, and our protagonist seemed to be really good at making really bad choices. All of this while the stakes were constantly flip-flopping in a way that made it hard to get too deeply invested created a world and story that were broadly rich but lacking in any real distinct depth for me.
I loved the illustration of Malaysia and its neighbors around the South China Sea: the social culture and customs are very neatly shown without being told, and the descriptions of architecture and food were invigorating, but there were times that the implementation of the local mythology felt awkward and squished, and our protagonist seemed to be really good at making really bad choices. All of this while the stakes were constantly flip-flopping in a way that made it hard to get too deeply invested created a world and story that were broadly rich but lacking in any real distinct depth for me.