Into the Riverlands

Sooo I read this one before the second one, but it didn't spoil me anything in the story, that's nice :'D Really love this serie, it makes me feel calm and cozy and paints beautiful pictures of those legends in my mind. I really like how the author weaves the characters and the legends together and I'm always happily surprised at the end.

This story is going to haunt me, and I mean that as a high compliment. I love the way it plays with who gets remembered and how, the way we put our stories into boxes (the Ugly Women tales), and how much of someone you can ever really know.

The character interactions really sing in this novella; both the established ones and the way both groups interact with Chih and each other as they get temporarily embroiled in each others lives on a journey that winds up a lot tenser and more exciting than anyone bargained for. The girls were a lot of fun, but I wound up really falling for Lao Bingyi and Khanh (partially because I love seeing older characters). Highly recommended, and I am really looking forward to the rest of the series!

Another cosy/dramatic/mythical vignette, or series of vignettes, set in the world of Singing Hills.

1. I'm not a fan of short books. I like the middle of the road sized, where there's some room to build out a storyline and characters.
2. It's about stories of the region and as I'm not a native I'm confused as to whether the stories' characters are based on reality or made up [for some reason this is important to me, don't yet know why] and lost track of who was who and who was with who. I prefer not to get lost in the telling of a story.
3. I had a hard time becoming attached to the stories or the characters both the book's and the stories'. See 2.

A perfect confection of a story. 

Another solid entry in the Singing Hills series. To me this is strongest of the novellas by Vo so far. I love a good story, and this series is more about the storytelling than the character development or plot.

I slightly disliked this. Maybe because it is the third iteration of this series but this book was both shorter and had fewer stories and more plot. Which is the opposite of what I liked about the last book. I still really like Chi as a character and their weird adventures and especially compared to the last two novellas this one is disappointing. 

This story was so fun - the stories were interesting and the theme of never being able to fully know another person and these little gifts of learning special things about them was really well executed. This one took a while to get going for me but the way it wrapped up was perfect.

This has been one of the most fun series I've read in recent times, so I was very excited when a new installment was announced. And this felt like something that was written just for me.

The past two years has been me absolutely binging and adoring Chinese wuxia dramas, so imagine my delight when I read the premise of this story. The author does a brilliant job bringing the delight and charm of those dramas to this lovely little novella and we get a tale of legends, amazing martial artists, awesome fight sequences and discussions of their styles (really reminiscent of Condor Heroes) and the overall freedom in being able to traverse through the dangerous riverlands and fight against bandits.

It's always nice to be back with our favorite cleric Chic and the sassiest bird Almost Brilliant whose one liners make this book even more fun. But I thought this was all Lao Bingyi's show - mysterious woman and brilliant fighter, who definitely has so much more to do and share with the world. Wei Jintai didn't have too many lines in the book but she definitely is a legend in making herself and I had this intense wish to know what happens to her next.

Overall, this was a slightly bloody, but charming story, reminding one of all our favorite wuxia stories, whether you've watched the dramas or read Jin Yong's books. It starts off with the signature tavern brawl and only gets more fun from there, so if you wanna indulge in some nostalgia, don't miss this quick and entertaining read.