Whenever I come across a story about the Chinese American immigrant experience, I must read it. I'm forever trying to find that connection with others like myself, with people and characters who can somehow put into words a confounding experience, one I am still trying to figure out, even after so many years.

But that wasn't this book. It makes me sad to report that I couldn't find any connection at all with The Family Chao; the only familiar part was the food. Otherwise, this grotesque and dehumanizing tale repulsed me and made me wonder what the author was hoping to achieve.

To start, not a single character in here could be considered real or complex or likable. Instead, they're each an extreme caricature. The oldest brother is stubborn and reckless, the middle one is successful but emotionally gone, and the youngest is timid and meek. And they are all overshadowed by their loud, crude, and lewd father. Each character must stick to those narrowly defined traits and that's all the personality they have.

Their interactions with each other are so vulgar and bombastic that it made me cringe. There is a vitriol and malice behind them that is hard to stomach. This in-your-face style is so incongruous with Chinese familial interactions, which are always characterized more by what is unsaid than what is said. It made me question why the author chose to portray the characters in such a way, when they bear no resemblance to reality.

There is so much hatred in this book. Hatred for self, hatred for being immigrants, hatred for being Chinese, hatred of one's family, hatred of the future and the past. It comes off of the pages in waves and waves. There is no subtlety, only quantity.

There are also a lot of sexual references in this book, whether it's mentioning body parts or commenting on women or trying to have sex with them. But the descriptions are at best cold and emotionless, and at worst, offensive and obscene. It was so aggressively written that it was impossible to ignore.

At some point, the story even takes stereotypes and seem to encourage them. Is the restaurant serving dog meat? The fixation on how yellow the skin color is. How low the family will go for money. The implication that the only way to succeed is to marry a white woman (both of the older brothers are this way, whether through actions or feelings). Not a single one of these issues is addressed or resolved in any way.

As a reader, I have to ask myself: why did the author choose to write this? If you were going to write a story about a minority group often misunderstood, and you portray each person in the most simple and dehumanizing way—even going so far as to nickname the brothers "gou" (dog), a huge insult in Chinese—and you include some stereotypes that seem to further the misconception of who they are, what can possibly be the goal?

A book is a forum for an author to reach across the table to those they may not interact with otherwise. It's a chance to further understanding and portray people as both complex and human, in all the ways that are beautiful and ugly. But that didn't happen here. Maybe the author set out to do that, but somewhere along the way, the story got away from her and only the ugly remained.

Readaroo Rating: 1 star

My heartfelt thanks for the advance copy that was provided for my honest and unbiased review.

I'm super confused. I thought Reckless Girls was a mystery/thriller. But in that case, what book did I just read?

I thought I was promised a story about six people on an island, cut off from all civilization and help. At first, everything is perfect and they all think it's paradise. But slowly, strange things start to happen and of course, there is no escape. So you mean a locked-room mystery on an island? Say no more!

Except, I honestly couldn't find the mystery or anything resembling a thriller in here. Where is the tension and suspense? Or the crime? Or even a victim?

Instead, for the vast majority of this book, we follow a bunch of shallow twenty-somethings as they preen, try to get in each other's pants, swear a lot while saying the blandest things (which cannot possibly meet the bar for dialogue worthy of being in a book), and stir up drama out of nothing. It was so dull and petty. It's like reality TV, but not one I would actually watch because the people are boring and nothing is going on.

Then, in the last 50 pages, a frenzy of action happens, as if the book suddenly realizes it's time to wrap up. So it throws out one crazy development after another, with such rapid speed that I was afraid I would blink and miss it all. I definitely didn't see them coming, I'll give you that, but that's because the whole thing is ridiculous and doesn't make any sense.

After I was done with the book, I read the official blurb more carefully, and it makes a reference to Agatha Christie. Ah, all of a sudden, it makes more sense, at least what Rachel Hawkins was trying to do. But unfortunately, I fear the great dame would have rolled over in her grave had she seen this misappropriation of one of her classics.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

My heartfelt thanks for the copy that was provided for my honest and unbiased review.

Well, I'm going to need jaw reattachment surgery after reading this. Just absolutely insane!

The Dark Forest picks up not long after the end of book 1, and I admit, I was a bit confused at first. Because you see, it starts off really slow, so slow I was left wondering how it's possible this same author could've written the fast-paced and information-dense story that was its predecessor.

For most of Part I, we just meander along, seemingly without any point or much plot advancement at all. We come across random asides and the weirdest love story I have ever read. At one point I even thought to myself, Liu Cixin has lost his mojo. He blew his entire bag of tricks on book 1 and now he has nothing left for book 2. Ha, I have never been so glad to be wrong.

Because the moment I turned the pages to Part II, then bam, Liu Cixin is back! From then on, the story intensifies relentlessly into a crescendo of revelations that is sure to stun and satisfy any science fiction lover. Liu has a really interesting style of writing, in which he invites the reader to take a journey with him. He'll lay down breadcrumbs early, then come back later to coalesce them into fully-formed thoughts and ideas. As a reader, it makes for an extremely satisfying experience.

And the last 100 pages was the best 100 pages of anything I have ever read. I still have goosebumps just thinking about it. Liu Cixin, sir, well played!

But if the rest of the book was so amazing, what was going on with Part I? Well, I was talking to my husband about it, and he mentioned that it could be a common trope in Chinese literature. I think the Western equivalent is "zero to hero" but the Chinese version puts more emphasis on the zero part. The character is shown to be lazy and dithering for quite a while, until something finally comes along to force him to live up to his potential.

I have to touch upon the book's treatment of female characters. They come across as distinctly there to bolster the male characters' pride and reflect their glory. However, this is also the case with the younger characters in the book being there to bolster the older characters. I suspect it's because Chinese culture has always prized being male over female and being older over younger. It doesn't make it right (and in fact, I have rebelled against this my entire life), but I try not to be too harsh against an author who is accurately portraying the culture.

Regarding the translation, this book is translated by a different writer than book 1, and I personally preferred book 1's. I found this book's translation to be awkward at times, sometimes translating too literally and obscuring the meaning, while other times being too Western with the translation, so losing the cadence and style of Chinese that made book 1 such an effortless joy to read.

Even with the flaws, I've been loving this series so much and I think a big part is due to how fully it embodies the spirit of science fiction. Science fiction, more than any other genre, explores the social and technological aspects of humanity and ponders their consequences. It is a literature of ideas, if you will. But where Liu Cixin excels is not just in using these ideas, but also in fleshing them out to a degree never before seen and building them up into a grand epic tale. It truly is a feat to experience.

Readaroo Rating; 4 stars

Come With Me starts out so strong. The initial pages grabbed me and pulled me in so much, I thought I had that rare 5-star read on my hands. So the fact that it slid downhill to a 2-star read by the end, well, I'm just as surprised as you are.

On a seemingly regular day, Aaron's life is turned upside down when his wife Allison is killed by a random act of violence. He is overcome with grief and haunted by her loss. When he looks through her belongings, he comes across an unexplained receipt. Before he can move on, he has to get to the bottom of it.

I was riveted at the start. I found the initial chapters to be compelling and heartbreaking. Of course Aaron is consumed with grief and lost in this world without Allison, especially after such an unexpected and tragic death. The writing is atmospheric and full of sadness and longing, and I was totally on board. I also couldn't wait to see what secrets and mysteries Allison was hiding.

But then the story kind of stalled on the atmosphere of grief. I felt like I was just reading the same passages over and over, mostly on how sad Aaron is and how he can't let his wife go. He sees her in all the shadows and corners. He sees her in their closet and in the flickering lights. He sees her in the dark and in the mirror. Yep, I got it.

As for the mystery, it unfolds at a snail's pace with barely any developments. I thought there would be secrets to uncover about Allison, but it turns out she was merely looking into something else. So instead of this being Aaron investigating and putting together clues, it becomes him trying to figure out what his wife knew. He does this by obsessing about her, intuiting stuff from his gut, and proceeding as if whatever he thinks up must be correct. It's like my most hated trope—the drugged up, confused female narrator—has turned into a grief-ed up, obsessed male narrator.

There is also a supernatural element in here, which feels like it was shoehorned into the story. Is it supposed to be scary? I found it mostly annoying because it contributes to the extremely slow pacing of the story. Whenever there could be development, instead we spend many paragraphs on descriptions of lightbulbs flickering and dark shadows in corners, which all turn out to be nothing.

There are also a couple of other things that were really problematic for me. Every time there's a flashback of Allison, I liked her less and less, until I could no longer understand why Aaron even loved her to begin with. To top it off, there's clearly a scene of rape in there that the story just glosses over, as if it should be all right since the two people involved are married.

My other big problem with the storyline is that I'm not a fan of vigilante justice, especially ones that are arrived at via intuition rather than hard facts. There are multiple examples of this in the story, with both Allison and Aaron perpetuating it. And the excuse given is always grief. Spare me, please. Lots of people lose loved ones, yet they manage to continue on their lives without beating up or killing people.

This story had so much potential. I just wish it transitioned from a story about grief into the mystery it was meant to be. Instead, we get stuck on the grief, and there just wasn't enough plot advancement or even much sense to sustain hundreds of pages.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

Is it normal for one person to have this many enemies?

To be fair, this book wasn't bad. But up till now, this has been my favorite YA mystery series for very specific reasons. And unfortunately, I feel like this last book in the trilogy completely jumped the shark.

One of the reasons I adore this series is because of Pip. She's smart, fearless, and snarky, the perfect rendition of a modern-day Nancy Drew. But not in this book. In this book, she is angry and traumatized, and has turned into my least-favorite trope of all time: a pill-popping, freaking out, paranoid, therapy-is-not-for-me female narrator.

Of course she's traumatized by what happened to her in the last two books. Who wouldn't be, if this was real life? But I don't always want darker and grittier and more realistic in everything I read. One of the main reasons I escape into books is to take comfort in strong characters who can kick ass again and again, rising from the ashes no matter what happens to them. So the fact that this book shat all over its strong female character is a huge disappointment.

My other problem is the mystery, or lack thereof. In books 1 and 2, we follow Pip as she investigates, talks to suspects, gathers clues, and makes deductions. In other words, your standard Nancy Drew brought to life. But in this book, the mystery is just a small subset of the whole story, and it is over quickly, with barely any detecting.

So what is this story taken up with? Well, the first 100 pages is devoted to Pip raging and popping pills. Then we mercifully get into the core mystery of this book, but that's wrapped up pretty quickly by the end of Part I. At that point, the book takes a turn in a direction I don't even recognize for this series and its characters. It is so out of left field that I was just stunned (and not in a good way).

And to make matters worse, the entirety of Part II is obvious. It's clear what is going to happen, and the book just takes 200 pages to spell it out in long form. I don't have to have surprise after surprise in my books, but I'm not a fan of reading hundreds of pages when things can only go one way.

Also, at the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I don't think this book is YA-appropriate. Books 1 and 2 were Young Adult, yes, but not this book. The fact that Pip skulks around and procures drugs from the neighborhood drug dealer, then inhales said drugs in order to take the edge off her trauma, not to mention what happens in the second half of the book, makes this one of the darkest books I have ever read, not just in YA.

If you're thinking about reading this series, I still recommend it, especially books 1 and 2. Thankfully, each book is self-contained, with a mystery that's all wrapped up by the end. Each subsequent book does reference what happens in earlier ones, so read them in order for maximum spoiler-free enjoyment.

If the other two books in this series didn't exist, I'm sure I would have enjoyed this and found very little cause for complaint. But they do, and I can't just erase them from my mind. I fell in love with the Pip and the mysteries of those books, so in comparison, this book was a shock and a disappointment.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

DNF - The writing style is not for me. The sentence structure is so simple, yet the content is overly dramatic and irrelevantly descriptive.

Here is the exact scene when I realized this book is not for me: The doorbell rings. It takes the character two whole pages (ten paragraphs) to walk over and open the door. In the meantime, we are treated to musings on the weather, how the apocalypse is coming because it's raining so much, how they should build an ark, how she went to church to confess just in case the world is ending, how her blood is running cold with fear at the thought of someone at the door, and how her partner isn't around to open the door for her. Then she finally opens the door and it's just her neighbor.

I'm exhausted from that scene and we haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet. I toughed it out for a few more chapters after that, but it's pretty much the same. So I'm going to call it and move on.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars (DNF)

Umm, is that it?

Ok, let me start by first apologizing to everyone who loves this book. Obviously, I'm an outlier and my thoughts here are decidedly in the minority. So if you feel differently, please don't throw rotten vegetables at me.

Going into Piranesi, I had heard nothing but great things about it. How it's riveting and unputdownable. How no one had ever seen a story like this before. How the twist is going to blow my mind. Unfortunately, none of those turned out to be true for me.

For one thing—and please forgive for saying this—I just don't find endless descriptions of halls, statues, vestibules, tides, fish, and birds to be that interesting. I know, I can't believe I just admitted such a thing publicly. But that is the majority of this book! It was tolerable for the first thirty pages, when I worked hard to read and reread each description slowly so that I may keep straight every hall, statue, vestibule, tide, fish, and bird encountered. But I soon grew tired and just proceeded to read without retaining.

And it wouldn't be a big deal if the only issue with this book is its excessive descriptions. After all, I've read plenty of books like that and still eked out some enjoyment. But here, the descriptions are in combination with writing I couldn't make heads or tails of. I'll be honest, I barely understood most of the sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, no matter how much I concentrated or how many times I reread it.

So what's the problem? Well, for me, I just don't see a point to reading like that. When the writing is such that it isn't meant to be understood or remembered, but rather just skimmed to reach the end, then why am I even reading it? Sure, I wiled away some time turning the pages, but I ultimately come away unchanged, and for me, that is the worst result a story can achieve.

For such a short book, this sure was a slog. Lots of readers report reading it in one sitting because they couldn't put it down. It took me three days of dedicated reading time to get through it. Every time I put it down, I had no urge to pick it back up. The only reason I kept going is the promise of that great twist.

And here, my expectations were wrong too. For me, a twist means that the story is leading the reader in one direction, but then a development happens that takes the story in a completely different, unforeseen direction. Thus, the reader is surprised. But that didn't happen here. This book clearly leads you in one direction, and the reveal is exactly what you would expect from it.

Perhaps if you didn't know the book's genre going in (not sure how you'd be able to swing that though), this development would come as a surprise. But it's a fairly common concept. So to prevent the reader from figuring things out early, the book is written such that it maximumly obscures everything. Keeping the reader in this haze-like, confused state for as long as possible is the goal of this story.

And when we do reach the end, no actual explanation of the logistics are given. The how's and why's are just handwaved away. I don't mind being taken for a ride, but the destination had better be worth it. And it wasn't here. I expected creative and original, but I only ended up with derivative and unsatisfying.

I know not every book is for every reader, and this one definitely isn't for me. I marvel at stories that take complex and intricate ideas and turn them into something easily understood. This is the opposite. It takes a fairly simple concept that's been done many times before and somehow manages to turn it into the most obscure and confounding tale. No, thank you.

Readaroo Rating: 1 star

What sort of business though? Diamonds? Murder? Perhaps a bit of both? That would be nice.

Our four loveable septuagenarian are at it again. With their trademark mix of sweetness, smarts, and humor, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron come together to stick their noses where they don't belong. This time, they need to recover twenty million pounds' worth of diamonds and suss out a murderer.

The draw of this series has always been its characters. They are its heart and soul, and this book is another superb display of that. Their affection for one another, their enthusiasm for anything remotely exciting, and their good humor all exemplify the best of humanity, not just for old people, but for people of all ages.

The mystery itself is compelling and an improvement over the first book. Though it took its time getting started, leisurely leading us to the murderous moment, once we get there it's off to the races. From that point on, I found it completely unputdownable.

I've always enjoyed the dual points of view in this series, which alternate between third person omniscient and first person in the form of Joyce's journal. I find Joyce's voice to be particularly delightful and her colorful commentary of the events a real hoot and highlight.

Oh, and on an unrelated but practical note, I also learned that if you're ever attacked and you have a knife to defend yourself with, you should hold it with an overhand grip instead of an underhand one, as that allows for greater force. It's always nice when stories not only entertain but also impart useful information.

It's clear that in just two books, this series has become a favorite of mine. I can't wait for the next installment!

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

My heartfelt thanks for the copy that was provided for my honest and unbiased review.

In recent years, I have instituted a strict policy: I can't watch any tv or movie adaptation without having read the book first. And so in this fashion, many shows are forced to languish while I furiously try to read through my TBR. The Duke and I was one such victim, but no more.

And now that I'm done with the book, I can't help but feel slightly underwhelmed. Like, is this what everyone is swooning over? To be fair, the story is mostly fine, though a bit superficial. The majority of it is told via dialogue form. And while witty repartee is a big part of reading a Regency romance, this felt less witty and more cheesy. So while I smiled a lot, I also cringed at the overwritten and hammed up style.

The characters are all fairly one-dimensional. The only personality I was able to ascertain were from the men, who behaved ever more apelike as they asserted dominance over situations and each other. It really was a bit over the top. The fake dating trope of Daphne and Simon is one I'm normally a big fan of, but somehow I didn't quite connect with it this time. One moment, they were fake dating, then the next moment they were in love. Where is the transition? Still, it was mostly a bit of harmless fun.

However—and this is a big one—there is one particularly questionable scene near the end that I think most readers will object to. Reproductive coercion is not okay, and I'm baffled that this book not only portrayed it as no big deal, but in fact made it into the moral high ground. (I know this book is set during the 1810s, but was it written during that time too?)

Maybe I'm just too used to historical romances with more substance, where women are actually empowered, the plot is complex, and the dialogue makes me swoon. In comparison, this book feels rather simple, with a thin premise, fairly bland characters, and questionable scenes that masquerade as romance. It's an alright way to pass a few hours, but that's about it.

At least now I can finally go on to watch the show, so yay me!

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

I'm going to call it right now. Even though I only just finished book one, I'm certain The Three-Body Problem will go down as my favorite sci-fi series of all time.

This book blew my mind so thoroughly that it leaves only destruction in its wake. Where could Liu Cixin have possibly come up with all of these ideas and concepts? No wonder everyone says this is wildly imaginative. Even a single one of the ideas in here would have sufficed for a book of its own, but to put them all together into a single cohesive epic tale is absolutely jaw-dropping.

The pacing is relentless and the surprises just keep coming. In fact, it has more twists and turns than most mysteries and thrillers I've read. Not only is the story utterly riveting, but it's also insightful and thought-provoking, touching upon science, politics, philosophy, and history. I found myself glued to the pages. I wanted to inhale the story as fast as I could, but I had to slow myself down periodically to reread and fully absorb all that the book was trying to tell me.

This is my favorite type of science fiction, one that puts science front and center and unabashedly celebrates everything about it. There's no handwaving, no hocus pocus. Every point brought up is eventually explained via actual science in ways that made complete sense. And what ingenious explanations they are, sure to stun and amaze any reader.

I found the initial pages, set during the Cultural Revolution, to be enlightening. This was the defining event of my parents' generation, yet they hardly talk about it. How do you put into words the frenzy that overtook a whole country, such that science and learning were denounced, and friends turned on friends, neighbors turned on neighbors? It's like a fever burned through the population, and left famine, trauma, and destruction in its wake. This emotionally fraught experience influences all who went through it, including the characters in this book.

With translations, there's always the fear that some vital but intangible part of the story will be lost. And this is especially the case when the two languages in question do not share a common linguistic ancestor, so translating between them is not as simple as one-to-one. In the translator's notes at the end of the book, Ken Liu mentions that he was cognizant of this and tried hard to preserve not only the story, but also the cadence and feel of the Chinese language and culture in his translation. I think he did an excellent job.

One thing to note is that the official book blurb is quite short for this story, but in my opinion, even that gives away too much. This is a book best experienced blind, so if you're going to read it, don't look up anything about it ahead of time.

What a tremendous way to start the trilogy. My expectations for the remaining two books are sky high, and I'm assured by everyone I know who has already read them that they will be met and exceeded. I have no doubt only goodness awaits me.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!