superborb

As my pile of library books looks accusingly at me, I "accidentally" bought Black Water Sister, got thoroughly distracted, and read it in a multi-hour frenzy. Oops?

The premise: Jess, an unemployed new college grad, is headed back to Malaysia with her parents after growing up in the US. With no time to adjust, she begins to hear the voice of her late grandmother, who wants Jess to take revenge on a gangster... It's a paranormal mystery with a theme of otherness.

OK I have to get it out of the way, this book hit my pet peeve on page two. The Ivies don't offer merit-based full rides!! I'm sorry, my overeducated USian self cannot help it. In all other respects, the US backstory is fine and vague.

Anyway, moving on, what I most love about Zen's set-in-Malaysia works is the Manglish. I've complained in the past about the self-consciousness of other works when trying to convey other languages; Zen never falls into that trap. It makes the work so much more immersive and real when you don't break disbelief for language. The only translation is for older sister, which was oddly explained twice-- it did act to emphasize those moments, I suppose.

Overall, the book is highly plot driven. It's like being tied to a train going full speed ahead sometimes. This obviously has its pros and cons: I never felt like the book was lagging and there was serious momentum at all points, but there wasn't as much space to explore anything other than Jess and the central plot. To me (and YMMV), sometimes characters felt like they existed only in conjunction to Jess and the plot. Part of this is the close third person POV: Jess is very much in her own head and it's totally in character for her to not have much insight into other people's emotional lives.

I had seen some snippets of the book on twitter, and none of them I felt sold the book very well? Like, food yay, but that definitely undersells the book IMO. The tension of not being out underlies a lot of Jess's thought processes (even when she doesn't realize it consciously) and queerness conflated with diasporaness with otherness is a major theme... but 'paranormal mystery' was the primary vibe I got. Trying to predict the twists and turns ended up occupying more of my reading efforts.

In conclusion! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it.