A review by ehuffman
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

This book was pretty good. I missed the cast of characters from the first book, but I got into Bahram's story after a bit, and from there on out it was mostly smooth sailing. (Ha.) I did have a bit of trouble getting through all the blah opium arguments. Sorry. I thought the saga with the Golden Camillia ended rather...abruptly. Though perhaps Ghosh will pick it up again in the third book, because it seemed suspiciously terminated.

There was one aspect of the book that I kept having to roll my eyes at: the fact that everything cool seemed to come from the Accha Hong in Canton. Ketchup, chai, cricket. I thought it was kind of cool at first, but then they just stuck out to me and I wanted to shake Ghosh by his shoulders. "Enough with the cool references to modern-day stuff!!!"

But aside from that, it's a good read! I'm really looking forward to the third, whenever that may be...