A. Y. Chao

Shanghai Immortal

kyra

4/5. i knew i’d like this book. i didn’t expect to like any of the characters this much but i’m pleasantly surprised.

I read this because I was gifted it but didn’t have high expectations and that was probably for the best going in. It was pretty meh. The first half of the book was horrible - an almost 100-year-old deity throwing tantrum after tantrum like a 5 year old and blowing up at the slightest comment. Also the language was horrible and very anachronistic people in the 1920’s saying piss-fart and ta-tas? I don’t buy it. Her sayings were also extremely overused and grated on the nerves. If I had to read “rotted doe-eyes” one more time…. 🙄. The second half got marginally better as the author had the character grow a bit and the plot finally started to move. But it was all a bit lackluster and irritating for me. The little bit of romance was sweet though I guess.  

Katie Allard

With such a title, you’d expect me to be beautiful – all hair, ta-tas, and ass, held together with lashings of poise and dignity. Well, I’ll disabuse you of that notion right now. I am a degenerate mix of unfortunate genes and circumstances. From my dearly departed mother – a hulijing, or ‘bitch of a fox-spirit’ as I prefer to call her – I inherited my feral lack of charm; from my father – some leech-faced vampire who couldn’t be bothered to stick around – a damned inconvenient predilection for blood.

I don't know whether that sounded like the beginning of a good book to you, but it didn't to me, and I was already put off by the first page.

I had to ditch my rating system, as I didn't read enough to be able to judge the plot and world-building. 

My main problem with this book was that I did not like the writing style. It was too modern, juvenile and consisted of vulgar phrases and slang, so the random fancy words felt out of place. In some cases, the dictionary didn't help because it looked as if the author threw in literal translations or just straight up Chinese phrases and words. Like what is a piss-fart? Listen, l like when poc authors use terminology from their language, but they usually add a glossary, or it's just a name of something, or you can guess what the word is supposed to mean from the context. But in this case, some sentences made no sense. For example: I laugh, startling the mortal, then just as quickly understand how much mafan this means for me. Or: The mortal puts on an expression that looks like he badly needs to dabian. I've been told it means to shit if you couldn't guess. For some reason, the author felt the need to use mafan over 40 times. I looked up the shit stick, and it appears that it isn't just made up nonsense, so I'll forgive the use of that phrase, but I don't think anyone in the 1930s, which is a part of the setting, was saying ta-tas, bamboozled, or grown ass woman. Also, one guy was named Horsey. 

I couldn't stand the main character either. She, with her 100 years of age, acted immature and then had the audacity to complain that nobody respects her. And she was the I-hate-dresses type of woman who kept complaining about her qipao and rolling it up. 

This book was trying too hard to be funny with a strong-willed main character and it didn't work out at all. I don't want to be harsh, but it needed a better editor at the very least. Because the author made choices, and it seems like nobody was there to fix them.

Arc provided by publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 1.75 stars

Dnf at 27%

With such a title, you’d expect me to be beautiful – all hair, ta-tas, and ass, held together with lashings of poise and dignity. Well, I’ll disabuse you of that notion right now. I am a degenerate mix of unfortunate genes and circumstances. From my dearly departed mother – a hulijing, or ‘bitch of a fox-spirit’ as I prefer to call her – I inherited my feral lack of charm; from my father – some leech-faced vampire who couldn’t be bothered to stick around – a damned inconvenient predilection for blood.

I don't know whether that sounded like the beginning of a good book to you, but it didn't to me, and I was already put off by the first page.

I had to ditch my rating system, as I didn't read enough to be able to judge the plot and world-building. 

My main problem with this book was that I did not like the writing style. It was too modern, juvenile and consisted of vulgar phrases and slang, so the random fancy words felt out of place. In some cases, the dictionary didn't help because it looked as if the author threw in literal translations or just straight up Chinese phrases and words. Like what is a piss-fart? Listen, l like when poc authors use terminology from their language, but they usually add a glossary, or it's just a name of something, or you can guess what the word is supposed to mean from the context. But in this case, some sentences made no sense. For example: I laugh, startling the mortal, then just as quickly understand how much mafan this means for me. Or: The mortal puts on an expression that looks like he badly needs to dabian. I've been told it means to shit if you couldn't guess. For some reason, the author felt the need to use mafan over 40 times. I looked up the shit stick, and it appears that it isn't just made up nonsense, so I'll forgive the use of that phrase, but I don't think anyone in the 1930s, which is a part of the setting, was saying ta-tas, bamboozled, or grown ass woman. Also, one guy was named Horsey. 

I couldn't stand the main character either. She, with her 100 years of age, acted immature and then had the audacity to complain that nobody respects her. And she was the I-hate-dresses type of woman who kept complaining about her qipao and rolling it up. 

This book was trying too hard to be funny with a strong-willed main character and it didn't work out at all. I don't want to be harsh, but it needed a better editor at the very least. Because the author made choices, and it seems like nobody was there to fix them.

Arc provided by publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shanghai Immortal

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