SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Black Water Sister by Zen Cho: https://t.co/xEY6oKXTCO
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) July 2, 2021
Short Review: 8.5 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): When Jessamyn graduates and heads to Malaysia with her family she finds herself haunted by her dead grandma and caught between gangsters, old vengeful spirits and gods, and unsure of what future exists for her.
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) July 2, 2021
Really strong modern fantasy by Cho.
2/3
Black Water Sister is the latest book from Malaysian author Zen Cho, known for 2015's novel Sorcerer to the Crown, as well as various other books and short fiction, much of which has been award nominated. Her most recent novella, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, is a finalist for the Locus Award and was really really good fun as sort of Wuxia-fanfic (the author's own description) type story. Black Water Sister is a book that has been hyped a bit online, featuring Cho finally setting a book fully in Malaysia (the Sorcerer to the Crown books featured a few characters from Malaysia and some connections to the country, but it wasn't quite the same thing).
And Black Water Sister is a strong book, featuring some great character work and a lot of ideas all at once that somehow mesh fairly well together. The book stars a Malaysian girl, an unemployed post college graduate, who feels bound to help her parents as they move back to Malaysia, but also a bit lost on what to do as a closeted girl in a traditional family who feels both smothered and in debt to her parents. Add in the ghost of her grandmother possessing/haunting her, spirits and goddesses with traumatic pasts, and a country that is largely corrupt from both money and gangsters, and well, there's a lot going on here, in a story that is both heavy in themes (abuse, sexual assault, homophobia, and more make appearances) and still often quite humorous at the same time.
Trigger Warning: Nothing happens on page, but backstory and relived memories of sexual assault and abuse exist here. Homophobia, both real and implied as well.
-------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Jessamyn Teoh has enough stress and problems in her life right now. Despite graduating from Harvard, she's broke and jobless and living with her parents, and moving back with them to Malaysia, a country she last visited as a toddler. She's closeted, to her girlfriend's frustration, and afraid of what her traditional parents would do if they found out. And then there's her father going back to work despite recovering from cancer or the gaggle of relatives she doesn't know that she'll have to soon deal with, along with learning the language and ways of a country foreign to her.
But then she starts hearing a voice in her head, a voice that belongs to the spirit of her dead grandmother, Ah Ma, who was estranged from her mother for unknown reasons. Ah Ma was a medium for a powerful God, whose temple is in danger of being destroyed by a man who rose from a gangster to one of the richest most powerful people in Malaysia - and she desperately wants Jess to help her cause. And since Ah Ma can take over Jess' body when she's asleep, Jess finds herself unable to just say "no."
But the world of gods, spirits, and mediums is just as dangerous as anything else, and Jess will soon find herself at the mercy of old family and godly secrets, and traumas that continue to haunt the world...and Jess, even to the present day, and threaten to take what little Jess seems to have going on in her life....
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Black Water Sister is a book with a lot of things going on and that tries to handle these things in different ways than you would expect. You have Jess's struggle as a closeted daughter of a traditional family, with her struggle only exacerbated by her constant feeling of being indebted to her parents who sacrificed seemingly everything to put her through Harvard....only for Jess to wind up without a job. You have Jess' relationship - now long distance - with her girlfriend, who has a job in Singapore and is pushing Jess to come out and to look for a job near her. You have a Malaysia where police and people in power can be bought with money, which is trying to get more modern in some ways and is at the same time very traditional and superstitious, with temples to various gods as well as a strong following in Christianity. And of course you have the supernatural, such as those gods and spirits being real and interacting with Jess, and causing her major problems in the process.
It all shouldn't work together, but it does in interesting ways in large part due to how strong Jess is as a voice and a character, with her bitterly sardonic and pessimistic nature providing some humor to it all and making her deeply easy to empathize with and care about. This is a girl who finds herself digging deeper and deeper into a depressing situation, both in her own personal life and in the situation regarding her grandmother in Malaysia (her grandmother being oddly hilarious at times also helps, even as she's rude and similarly relatable at times). Jess' journey in this book is to try and figure out what obligations and debts she really has, whether she really is fated to follow her parents and others' footsteps, or if she can actually take a step forward and break cycles and seek her own happiness. And it works really well.
This journey is of course illustrated by the other characters and the country itself. So you have Jess' grandmother, whose tragic backstory resulted in abuse and a loss of love and a commitment to a cruel and vindictive goddess...who has her own tragic backstory she just can't move past. You have Jess' mother, who has always felt slighted by her grandmother giving her up and wishing to stay away from Ah Ma's work as a spirit medium. You have the country, where a gangster man can rise up with wealth and be able to buy everything and everyone while also still being superstitious, all the while having a son and heir who wants to be more modern but thinks the way to save a temple is to make it part of a tourist attraction. It's a land and setting full of characters with ties to the past and uncertain paths of going forward, and it works pretty strongly.
It's a short novel, but the themes work pretty well, the story goes in directions you wouldn't expect (Jess' relationship the aforementioned gangster's son does not go in the way I expected at all), and is well worth your time.
Black Water Sister is a book with a lot of things going on and that tries to handle these things in different ways than you would expect. You have Jess's struggle as a closeted daughter of a traditional family, with her struggle only exacerbated by her constant feeling of being indebted to her parents who sacrificed seemingly everything to put her through Harvard....only for Jess to wind up without a job. You have Jess' relationship - now long distance - with her girlfriend, who has a job in Singapore and is pushing Jess to come out and to look for a job near her. You have a Malaysia where police and people in power can be bought with money, which is trying to get more modern in some ways and is at the same time very traditional and superstitious, with temples to various gods as well as a strong following in Christianity. And of course you have the supernatural, such as those gods and spirits being real and interacting with Jess, and causing her major problems in the process.
It all shouldn't work together, but it does in interesting ways in large part due to how strong Jess is as a voice and a character, with her bitterly sardonic and pessimistic nature providing some humor to it all and making her deeply easy to empathize with and care about. This is a girl who finds herself digging deeper and deeper into a depressing situation, both in her own personal life and in the situation regarding her grandmother in Malaysia (her grandmother being oddly hilarious at times also helps, even as she's rude and similarly relatable at times). Jess' journey in this book is to try and figure out what obligations and debts she really has, whether she really is fated to follow her parents and others' footsteps, or if she can actually take a step forward and break cycles and seek her own happiness. And it works really well.
This journey is of course illustrated by the other characters and the country itself. So you have Jess' grandmother, whose tragic backstory resulted in abuse and a loss of love and a commitment to a cruel and vindictive goddess...who has her own tragic backstory she just can't move past. You have Jess' mother, who has always felt slighted by her grandmother giving her up and wishing to stay away from Ah Ma's work as a spirit medium. You have the country, where a gangster man can rise up with wealth and be able to buy everything and everyone while also still being superstitious, all the while having a son and heir who wants to be more modern but thinks the way to save a temple is to make it part of a tourist attraction. It's a land and setting full of characters with ties to the past and uncertain paths of going forward, and it works pretty strongly.
It's a short novel, but the themes work pretty well, the story goes in directions you wouldn't expect (Jess' relationship the aforementioned gangster's son does not go in the way I expected at all), and is well worth your time.
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