The Ghost Bride

Now, as I have said, under any other circumstance I would have written this book off as a loss and put it aside, because Li Lan is exactly the kind of YA character I do not enjoy reading about. But I kept going anyway because I realised that I actually understood what Li Lan was going through, despite my irritation at her flaws. I recognised her flaws as my own at that particular period in my life: I was just as wishy-washy, as indecisive, and yes, just as obsessed with romance as her when I was seventeen (and well beyond that, if I am being completely honest here). And I found it easier to forgive Li Lan her flaws, to see them as my own, because her setting, her culture, was patently not white. Li Lan is Straits Chinese, yes, and her customs are Straits Chinese, but her experience of colonialism and to some degree misogyny overlap with my own culture, my own history, my own experience. And that makes Li Lan a lot more relatable, a lot more interesting, than some of the protagonists I???ve seen (and dislike) in YA, such as the ???special ordinary??? white girl fighting a Western dystopia while trying to juggle her love interests when she really should be focusing on her survival.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-FO