Review: The Red Hunter (by Lisa Unger)

My Rating:  4 stars

Coming upon the end of the year, I’m trying to finish up a few of the reading challenges I’ve been working on the past few months.  One of those challenges is the A to Z Author Challenge whereby we read a book by an author whose name starts with each letter of the alphabet.  One of the remaining letters I had left for this challenge was the letter “U” – since the book I was originally going to read for this letter was not available at my library and I didn’t want to waste any more time trying to hunt for another book that would fit, I decided to browse through the library’s catalog of “U” authors and just pick one that was available and that I would be interested in reading.  During my search, I came across a few books by Lisa Unger, an author I actually wasn’t familiar with, but since there weren’t that many choices in the first place, I decided to go with her latest work The Red Hunter (after researching it first on Goodreads of course, lol).  Not having much expectation going into it (since it was somewhat of a random pick after all), I was pleasantly surprised that the book ended up being an excellent read, a page turner that I thoroughly enjoyed and found difficult to put down!   From the explosive first scene, of a murder that takes place in cold blood, then a shocking rape scene in the next chapter, Unger wastes no time establishing the trigger points right off the bat that will end up driving the rest of the story.  We are introduced to the two main characters, Zoey Drake and Claudia Bishop – two women, completely unrelated, yet both suffer horrific assaults, unspeakable crimes that destroy their lives physically, emotionally, mentally.  Both women, strangers who endured very different traumas, go down different paths, choosing to handle the rage within them in different ways.  As both work up the courage to face the demons of their pasts, their paths end up colliding in ways entirely unexpected.

Technically, I would rate this book somewhere between 4 and 4.5 stars (closer to 4.5).  As a psychological thriller / suspense novel, this one was absolutely top notch!  There was the intense, well-crafted plot that had a perfect amount of twists and turns scattered in all the right places throughout the book, which is of course what we should expect from a good thriller, but what made this one stand out was the characters. It’s not often that we come across a thriller where pretty much all of the characters are well-developed, each one realistically drawn as flawed human beings who make as many bad decisions as they do good ones, ordinary folks who encounter the same day-to-day pressures the rest of us do.  I loved how the author explored the issue of moral ambiguity through her characters, especially when it came down to the question of justice versus revenge, but there was so much more as well – many sensitive and thought-provoking issues, explored on a deeper level, yet at no point did I feel that this bogged down the plot.  The two main characters especially were meticulously drawn – believable characters whom I was able to connect with and relate to, feel for them with the traumas they suffered, yet also feel frustrated and annoyed when they made bad decisions or acted in ways that they knew would not turn out well.  I felt I was on the journey with both these women and appreciated seeing their growth throughout the time I got to spend with them.

This was an absolutely enjoyable read, a thrill-ride from beginning to end!  No doubt that Lisa Unger is a great storyteller and while I did figure out some of where the story was going about two-thirds of the way through the book, that did not detract from my experience much at all.  One of the things I appreciated most about this book was the way it made me ponder and ask myself tough questions that I may not have considered previously.  A book that makes me think and wonder is a good book in my world but to also have it be suspenseful and well-written with an intricately woven plot and well-developed characters, that’s icing on the cake to me!  This is the first book I’ve read by Lisa Unger but rest assured it definitely won’t be the last!

Review: History's Fiction - Stories from the City of Hong Kong (by Xu Xi)

My Rating:  3 stars

I was born in Hong Kong and even though I had never really lived there due to my family immigrating to the U.S. when I was a baby, I’ve always had an inexplicable attraction towards the city of my birth.  I follow HK news daily, sometimes even more so than news about the U.S. or local news about the state where I currently live.  I watch a lot of HK movies and drama series and also follow the HK entertainment scene very closely (despite living in Los Angeles, I can’t begin to tell you who the current rising stars are in Hollywood because I honestly don’t pay much attention, but ask me who the most popular HK celebrities are and I can probably talk your ear off).  As an avid reader, I also naturally gravitate towards books that have a Hong Kong element to them – i.e.:  books set in HK, about HK people or culture, written by HK authors, etc.  I’ve never really understood why, throughout my life, I’ve always had such an affinity for a city that I barely lived in and certainly didn’t grow up in – to this day, I still don’t really understand, but regardless, I’ve come to embrace the city as a place very near and dear to my heart.  Nowadays, every time the words “Hong Kong” comes up, whether in casual conversation with friends, in the media, on television, in books, etc., my ears automatically perk up.  There’s a constant curiosity within me to see how my birth place is depicted, especially to those who may not be familiar with the city. 

When I first heard that a compilation of HK author Xu Xi’s short stories would be republished in a new  collection to be released this year, I was excited and quickly picked up the collection as soon as it was released several months ago.  I’ve read some of Xu Xi’s works before, but it was a long time ago, back during a time when I read more casually and didn’t really have the foresight to understand or appreciate what I was reading.  Things are different now of course and having experienced what I have over the years, I tend to approach most of what I read with the hope of forming a “personal connection” in some way.  With short stories, especially ones that have completely different characters and little to no linkage from one story to the next, this type of connection is hard to establish, which is why I’m not much of a fan of short story collections in general.  The stories in this particular collection were actually ones that Xu Xi wrote throughout her long, illustrious career, with the oldest one written back in 1981 and the most recent one from 2001 (this is actually the second printing of the book – it originally came out back in August 2001).  Not having read this collection back when it was originally published in 2001, this was my first experience reading Xu Xi’s short stories and I have to admit that it was different from what I expected.  This was a mixed bag of sorts – an eclectic combination of stories, all set in Hong Kong, with the common theme of being infused with doses of Hong Kong history spanning 3 decades (from the 1960s up through HK’s return to China in 1997) that serve as the backdrop for each story.  I was expecting the stories to all have a “uniqueness” to them that was distinctly and recognizably HK and while most of them did, there were a few that I felt were a bit too “generic,” almost as though they could’ve taken place anywhere else other than HK.  Also, a few of the stories felt incomplete, as though we as readers were only being treated to a small “snippet” of the story and would have to go hunt down the continuation elsewhere.  In reading through Xu Xi’s author notes and acknowledgments at the beginning of the book, it does seem that each story was excerpted from various publications over a span of 20 years – some of the stories were originally published in magazines and newspapers, a few were from earlier short story anthologies, two were actually excerpts from novels, and two were originally manuscripts broadcast on the radio.  I’m not too sure why these particular stories were selected to be included in this collection, but I think the way these stories were pulled together (being from so many different sources and formats) affected my ability to connect with some of the stories as much as I wanted to.  I would prefer to have read these stories from the original source where they were initially published, within the original context of the stories, rather than excerpts from a longer anthology or novel.  This was the main reason for me rating this collection only 3 stars, as I put a little more weight on the impact to my personal reading experience than I did to the contents of the stories themselves.  With that said, I do appreciate the fact that Xu Xi listed in detail the original sources that these stories came from in her Acknowledgements page so I can at least go back and hunt down those sources and perhaps re-read these stories in their original context someday.

Overall, I would say that for those who may not be familiar with Hong Kong and its history, this collection is a good way to “get your feet wet” – plus the way Xu Xi blended history and fiction together was well-done and made the history portion especially accessible to those who may not be too keen on reading history straight from textbooks.  One thing to note is that Xu Xi is one of the few writers born and raised in HK who actually writes entirely in English rather than Chinese, so at least we don’t have to worry about aspects of her stories being “lost in translation” (something that I’m very particular about).  With all that said however, I would recommend reading these stories in their original form if possible (i.e.: from the sources in which they were originally published) so as to do justice to Xu Xi’s skills as a writer and story-teller, which stands out less in this story collection than it does in her other works. 

Review: After You (by Jojo Moyes)

My Rating:  3 stars

I had actually read this book more than a year ago, not too long after reading the first book Me Before You, however I had put off writing a review for it because of several reasons, the main one being that I was seething mad that this sequel even existed.  I enjoyed Me Before You immensely and even though at the time I read that book, I may not have been as emotionally invested in it overall as other readers were, I still felt that there was a “specialness” to Lou and Will’s story that was uniquely and irreplaceably theirs.  Despite the controversial ending, that book worked perfectly fine as a stand-alone novel and I finished the book feeling that there was enough closure for this to be a memorable read that was not overdone.  But then I found out that there was a sequel and despite my misgivings due to a general disdain for sequels/spinoffs/follow-ups that involve the same characters and story, I decided to go ahead and read After You anyway – once again, my curiosity got the better of me.  My very first reaction after finishing the sequel was that I wanted to throw the book against the wall (yes, I was that upset) – the only thing that prevented me from doing so was the fact that I had bought a paperback copy of the book at the airport (I was coming home from a business trip) and seeing that it cost way more than I should’ve had to pay for it, I didn’t want to ruin the physical book itself.  To me, the entire story in After You was totally unnecessary and it frustrated me the direction that Moyes decided to take the sequel, introducing characters that I felt did nothing to enhance the original story.  In fact, I felt like the way things went down in the sequel actually eroded some of that “specialness” that had made the first book so good and memorable.  Also, there were too many times throughout the book where I felt like the story was being dragged out unnecessarily and I actually started to lose patience.  Worst of all though, this sequel ended up tainting my memory of all the characters from the original story -- by the end, I was so irritated and annoyed with Lou that it was hard for me imagine her as being the same “special” person she was in the first book.  If After You had been a completely separate story, a stand-alone that had nothing to do with Me Before You, I think I might have been able to overlook some of the things that frustrated me about the story (i.e. some of the plot points that were a bit far-fetched) and maybe, just maybe, even like the book. But I guess it was not meant to be….

So then, since I obviously didn’t like the sequel much and procrastinated on writing this review because of it, why did I decide more than a year later to finally put my thoughts to paper?  Well, I just found out (and very shockingly so) that Moyes will be coming out with a THIRD book to this series (the third book is titled Still Me and is scheduled for publication in January 2018).  Of course, my first reaction to this news was – REALLY??? ANOTHER SEQUEL???  Do we really need a continuation to this story?  Part of me wants to steer clear from the third book because seeing how my reaction was to the second book, I’m pretty sure this go around is going to be the same (reading the summary for the third book didn’t help things either) and I’m not keen on the idea of putting myself through all that frustration again. BUT of course, once again, my curiosity got the better of me, plus the fact that I’m already so “invested” in this franchise from reading the first 2 books, I feel like it’s impossible at this point not to read the third book too.  I’m not sure what to expect (in a way, I don’t WANT to expect anything) but I’m going to try to keep an open mind and hope for the best….

(Read in August 2016)