I’m sharing my first Mini Review Monday of May (on a Tuesday). This is one of my favourite review series; the most recent of which was last week. In case you haven’t seen any of my previous posts, I do ‘mini’ reviews of books that I’ve previously read and am now ready to share my full thoughts about. All of today’s books publish later this week on Thursday 7th May.
First up, I’d like to talk about Boring Asian Female by Canwen Xu. Thank you to Bedford Square Publishers for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Elizabeth Zhang knows her place in the world. She knows she’s in the tenth percentile for likability, the seventieth percentile for attractiveness, and the ninety-ninth percentile for academics.
With a hard-working ethic instilled in her by immigrant parents, armed with impeccable grades, Elizabeth thinks she is set for Harvard Law School. Until she is rejected for being too ordinary, which she translates to mean she’s just another boring Asian female. But when her classmate Laura Kim gets in, everything falls apart. Why was Laura accepted? What makes her so interesting?
At first, she follows her because she’s just curious. What Laura eats for lunch. Where Laura shops. The answer for Elizabeth’s failure must lie somewhere in Laura’s life. But still, Elizabeth just can’t see it. The only thing she sees is that Laura has taken her spot at Harvard.
A spot she knows she deserves. A spot that she’ll simply have to take back.
CW: murder, death, violence, racism, miscarriage, sexism
My Thoughts:
Boring Asian Female is a biting and brilliant book that is difficult to get out of your head. It is a wild ride and you are captivated throughout.
Elizabeth is a fascinating protagonist with a narrative voice that ensnares you. Her single minded focus on getting into Harvard determines everything she does and the percentile system she sorts everyone she sees into is immediately informative of her character. She is judgemental and sorts people for how they can assist her or improve her in some way. There is this aching insecurity and uncertainty that Xu explores really well. That determination to finally fit in has an element of pity in it for a reader and endears you to her to a degree. You come to understand her mindset and can see her reasoning as she makes more and more dangerous decisions. That obsession is all-consuming. Her actions spiral in combination with her increasingly fractured mind. You can see the car crash coming and yet you cannot pull yourself away. Her voice is singular and arresting in a unique way.
I really liked how Xu chose to explore the ‘boring Asian female’ trope in this book. Elizabeth is convinced that is how Harvard sees her and what this indicates about the system of academia is fascinating. It is nuanced and I enjoyed how Xu explores the idea of being the model minority, tokenism and the intersection of different facets of identity. There’s race, gender and class all coming into conversation. The discussion around the proximity to whiteness is interesting and has different angles as the book continues. Xu also explores the pressures placed on Asian Americans by family and society without straying into stereotypes. Instead, these are undermined or played with and twisted beyond initial recognition.
Boring Asian Female is a great conversation starter and a book sure to leave you with plenty to think about.
Next up, I’d like to talk about The Bone Door by Frances White. Thank you to Penguin Michael Joseph for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
When Hop awakens in an ancient labyrinth, he has no memory of his life before, or how he got here.
He does not recognise the mysterious girl trapped with him.
And he certainly cannot identify the shadowy figure stalking him, whispering terrible things . . .
But there is one thing he is certain of.
He must escape.
The only way out of the labyrinth is through The Bone Door. But it lies behind a series of other locked doors hidden across an array of strange realms. To open the way, Hop must complete impossible tasks before his time runs out.
CW: murder, death, violence, sacrifice, child death, child abuse, burning
My Thoughts:
The Bone Door is a dark fairytale with bucketloads of blood and gore. White’s characterisation continues to sparkle and the labrythine plot was rewarding to see fully unfold.
Frances White proves they’re someone to keep your eye on. This is their second book and the second that made me sit up, think and fall in love with these characters. Voyage of the Damned was an excellent debut. I will admit this sophomore outing took me a little while to get into but once I was in, I was all-in. It is an unsettling story that you have to just allow White to guide you through its perilous pathways.
This is a layered and clever story with a lot to say about the cycle of violence and vengeance. It explores this destructive cycle and how it consumes all in its path. Some of the scenes enclosed are up to their elbows in gore but you can understand their narrative purpose. It is a very dark and heavy story at times, so do check content warnings if needed. White’s decision to use child protagonists for this adds another element to this thematic exploration. The violence is heightened because of those it is being inflicted to, the innocent and unknowing of the world. This monstrosity is cleverly woven into the world-building. Without giving anything away, this decision serves many purposes. Speaking of this, the story is also packed full of surprises and twists and turns along the way. The reveals are well-timed and serve as exceptional rug-pulls for the story, upending everything you may think you know.
The Bone Door is a pitch-black adult fantasy horror that gets under your skin but also delivers an ounce of hope for the future.
Finally, I’d like to delve into The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean. Thank you to HarperVoyager for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Mercy Chan is a triad exorcist with a mysterious past. After washing up on the shores of Hong Kong with no memory during World War II, she found a home in Kowloon Walled City, an infamous, ghost-infested slum full of lost and traumatised civilians. Since the war ended, Mercy has rebuilt her life and found work as a ghost-talker for the local triad, dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt this place.
But the past she can’t remember won’t let her go. An unusually powerful ghost lurks in Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. Unnervingly, it claims to know Mercy – and her forgotten childhood.
As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realise that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
CW: war, violence, death, murder, massacre, child death, grief, PTSD, suicide, body horror, gore
My Thoughts:
The Girl with a Thousand Faces is a gorgeously evocative but blood-soaked fantasy that grapples with generational trauma, cyclical violence and the aftermath of war.
Mercy is an endlessly fascinating protagonist with a fractured backstory that Dean slowly unfolds to you as a reader. She is a puzzle that you begin to piece together. The political backdrop she inhabits is intriguing with the government moves, the colonial influences and the spectre of war hanging over it all. Then you add in mysterious ghosts and impossible deaths and you have one hell of a story. Mercy as an exorcist inhabits that liminal space between worlds, able to communicate with both. The web of events she is caught up in is dark and tangled and only gets more complicated as the pages keep flowing.
Dean’s writing is exceptional. It is moving and completely immersive. You can feel the world coming to life around you, the characters spring off the page and the world-building is integrated in subtle and interesting ways. You feel like you touch on a myriad of stories with these three-dimensional characters, just turn a corner and end up in another book. I really enjoyed the way cultural elements are brought into the magic system and the different beliefs about spirits deeply inform the events of the book. It is well-plotted and keeps you glued to the page.
This story has a brilliant and unexpected twist that completely changes the trajectory of this story. It is well-seeded and yet takes you by surprise and flips everything on its head. From this point, you are not entirely sure what will happen next and that is such an exciting feeling as you read. Dean has plenty more tricks up her sleeve, all of which feel earnt and have genuine consequences on the story. Every reveal feels earth-shattering.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces is one of the most imaginative and intriguing fantasy stories I have read this year. It will stay with me for a long time.
A Short Book Lover 
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