The Night Tiger and Other December Reads

I finished nine books in December:

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J Maas
The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye (eARC)
An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris (audiobook)
The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab
Double Blind by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen (audiobook)
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo (ARC)

This brings my total for 2018 to 129 books! For the third year in a row, I beat my Goodreads goal of 120 books. We’ll see how next year goes…

Click here for a list of all the books I read in 2018.

This month had a lot of good reads in it (and a lot of LOOOOONNNNGGGG books). My favorite ARC of the month was The Night Tiger (review below).

Click here for my review of The Paragon Hotel.


I received an Advanced Reading Copy of The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo from the publisher (Flatiron Books) in exchange for an honest review. The Night Tiger is scheduled for release on February 12, 2019.

The Night Tiger takes us to 1930s Malaya (currently known as Malaysia) where Ji Lin is working as a "dance instructor" in a dance hall to earn money to pay off her mother's Mahjong debt. An encounter with a salesman on the dance floor ends in Ji Lin holding a glass vial with a shriveled human finger inside. Ji Lin sets out to return the finger to a more appropriate place, without revealing to anyone her slightly shady job.

At the same time, a young boy named Ren is trying to fulfill the death bed wish of his former master. He is searching for the finger his master had amputated years ago so that it can be buried with the rest of his body and his soul can be at peace.

The paths of Ji Lin and Ren dodge and twist around each other while a man-eating tiger terrifies the area. Mythology, folklore, and cultural norms further bend their paths, leading to an intricate and tightly woven plot. The story explores the battle between personal desires and family expectations, the limits of societal norms, connections that we can't see with our mortal eyes, and the influence of outside forces.

The writing in The Night Tiger is lovely. Once I started reading Choo's words, I was dropped into this time and place she brings to life so well. She is able to describe things in a way that brings them to life, even the elements of the story that are drawn from the magical.

The Night Tiger has two main characters (Ji Lin and Ren) who are very different despite their underlying connection. Both of these characters are well-written, with clearly defined desires and wishes. They are surrounded by a variety of other characters, including foreigners, that are equally well-written. While there are definitely character types in this story (required to fulfill the mythological and folklore basis of the story) they are not two-dimensional. Everyone in this novel has their own goal and personality.

Overall, The Night Tiger was an enjoyable, lovely read that I whole-heartedly recommend to anyone craving a bit of magical realism.