A Study in Scarlet Women, Sherry Thomas

I've read four Sherry Thomas books now, back-to-back, and each one, I think "Okay, this is my favorite!" She is whip-smart, and she writes beautifully, and I quickly get sucked in and care deeply about her characters. I ADORE the late 19th century period, and Thomas writes with just the right balance of research and description: enough to make the setting real, but not heavy-handed.

I'm highlighting A Study in Scarlet Women, the first in her 'Charlotte Holmes' mystery series: it's fascinating and funny and very clever, with several interlocking mysteries. It captures the 'feel' and delight of reading Sherlock Holmes, but without the dated misogyny of the original that now subtly grates on me. I can't wait to read A Conspiracy in Belgravia, the second mystery in the series!

I also read her historical romances, My Beloved Enemy, Not Quite a Husband, and His At Night. Absolutely loved each one. Despite the 'breathless' covers, these are hands down the best romances I've read to date: smart, well-researched, and emotionally engaging. I loved the setting of the first two (colonial Chinese Turkistan and northern India, respectively), which I found fascinating and fresh, and the third (His At Night) is a clever 'spy vs. spy'-style romance that reminded me of everything I love about The Scarlet Pimpernel. Thomas is the latest addition to my favorite authors, and I'm in the middle of reading everything she's written.

The Ghost Shift, John Gapper

Contemporary spy novel/murder mystery set in Hong Kong. I thought there were two particularly brilliant things about this: 1) The protagonist finds herself reliving the steps (with small variations) of the murder victim's last days and hours; 2) The setting is incredibly creepy because there's this pervasive sense of being nobody, a person with no rights, whether that's the Guangdong factory, or the CIA black site. There's a nefarious mystery plot, of course, but the factory chapters with the description of the living and working conditions should be required reading for all Americans.

Beauty and the Clockwork Beast, Nancy Campbell Allen

The concept here is absolutely brilliant: setting a 'Beauty & the Beast' story in steampunk/Gothic. I have a weakness for all three, and I loved the feel of this world. I was hoping for a little more weirdness - too many inventions, like the mechanical horseless carriage, felt like easy equivalents for our own world, especially the ability to 'telescribe' other people, which sounded a lot like texting.

I like very strong plots with a clear sense of what we're doing and where we're going (while hoping to be surprised), and for me the first two-thirds of the book was missing that sense of urgency. But I kept going, because I liked the world and the concept; I did feel like it picked up, and I thoroughly enjoyed the last third.

The characters did not grab me by the heart, although this is probably no fault of the author's, and I really, really shouldn't complain, because Allen is well within the tradition. I'm personally fed up with Mr. Rochester-style heroes and spunky, liberated heroines. I suppose this is part of what you ask for when you pick up a 'Beauty & the Beast' story, but to me, the core of the story is the question whether Beauty will be able to see and love the Beast for who he is (how he acts, what he says), despite his repulsive exterior. It seems to me that this has been flipped, and what we get (over and over) are devastatingly handsome 'beasts' who behave rudely, and the question has morphed into something like whether Beauty will have the courage to stand up to this jerk and sass him right back. ARRG!

Again, I'm in the minority.

I do understand 'the beast' is a metaphor for overwhelming male sexuality, and we expect (at least in fantasy), that a spunky, liberated woman will be able to meet him at his level and transform the 'danger' into a mutually satisfying relationship. I think this is a rather limited view of male sexuality, however (physically dominating, inclining toward brutish).

I also think it's a rather narrow view of female strength: the heroines I really bond with, like Jane Eyre, like Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White, are not overtly pretty, they do not move freely in their society, they do not speak freely in front of anyone who will listen, they are incredibly vulnerable--and yet, they dig deep and find courage, against the odds, in the midst of their terror.

Beauty and the Billionaire, Barbara Dunlop

I'm on a 'Beauty & the Beast' retellings jag. Dunlop's novella is what I would call a 'fantasy romance' - he & his Platinum Amex take her off to Paris for a 'Pretty Woman' style high-fashion makeover - but it is textbook perfect for the genre and hits all the marks. The main characters are devastating good-looking, confident, and successful, which is almost a given for the genre (possibly a necessity); I tend to go for less showy protagonists, like Connie Willis' nerdy & sweet male leads. I know it's supposed to be fantasy (pretend he's gorgeous; pretend you're gorgeous), but people like this feel unrelatable to me and don't snag my heart. Still, Dunlop deserves credit for a well-executed, squarely-in-the-genre novella. There is a lot of verbal repartee filled with teasing innuendo along the way that makes it a fun read.

Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan

About the same time as I picked up Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians, I saw this in my twitter feed from the Dalai Lama:

and it hit me like a ton of bricks, but Kwan's beau monde comedy of manners (and snobbery) is such a searing illustration. These characters live in the height of luxury at the top of society (not just rich, but 'crazy rich') and yet most of them are miserable, either through envy or a fear of falling behind or more personal, private heartaches.

I expected the book to be more...gossipy? Catty tell-all? More of a beach read at any rate. But the suffering is so human that I couldn't get into the comedy. Perhaps a different reader. Or maybe Kwan wants us to feel it less as a comedy. It reminded me, for some reason, of Proust (A LOT more readable, though), in its 'slice of life at the top,' and the subtle repulsion with what he witnesses around him. Utterly fascinating. I particularly like the way Kwan changes up his narrative style: mostly in third-person omniscient, but including other narrative devices such as IM exchanges, newspaper notices, magazine articles, etc.

It took me a little bit to get into--Kwan provides family trees at the beginning, but there are ton of characters, and it took me a while to warm up to them, but I was hooked by the end and went straight into the sequel, China Rich Girlfriend, which I enjoyed immensely. Looking forward to the third book in the series, Rich People Problems.

"One Nite in Mongkok" (2004)

Surprised by how much I liked this movie that follows a group of cops and a hit man on a mission over a 3-day stretch in a district of Hong Kong.

Half of what I like is director Derek Yee's style, which has the feel of a documentary instead of a movie: for all the car chases I've seen in my life, this the first film I can remember that includes a scene in which the cops and paramedics are actually dealing with the aftermath. All the violence feels more real - not that that's something I enjoy seeing, but it treats the characters as human beings. There is a phenomenal scene in which an older cop tries to get through to a rookie that 'bad' people are still people.

The other half of what I found so fascinating is what I would call the 'morality play', as the cops progressively transgress the rules, while Lai Fu (the hit man), struggles upwards towards a kind of redemption. Only a young Daniel Wu (or a young Matt Damon) could pull off this 'hit man with a heart of gold' character, but it's beautiful. There was A LOT in the middle of the movie that reminded me of the first Jason Bourne movie, although Yee's vision is darker and won't allow his character to escape. I got totally sucked in. Loved it, even if the end broke my heart.