With the film due for release tomorrow, this book has been ALL OVER Cannonball Read, so I’d like to thank a number of reviewers for bumping it up my TBR including, but not limited to: teresaelectro, kdm, Lollygagger, and llp. Pray for rain this weekend so I have an excuse to go to the theater.
The writing itself felt rather rote (it’s a glorious wordplay if you say it aloud), but technical skill isn’t why these books have become so popular. It’s the sumptuous scenery and elaborate costuming and I think that’s precisely why it is going to make an amazingly entertaining film. As much as I loved imagining everything Kwan described in my mind’s eye, I absolutely cannot wait to see it in living color onscreen.
This book describes a culture and a level of wealth (and the intersection of the two) that I am utterly alien to. I’ve known people for whom money is a game with little real meaning, but not a two-hundred-thousand-dollar-dress-just-because kind of game. I’m a little more familiar with the old money/new money dynamics of understood versus flaunted but even that took on a whole new dimension of mainland versus island that I never knew existed. It’s not that I can’t imagine this kind of world existing, it’s that I’ve never seen it laid out so starkly.
Despite my better judgement – if you’ve read my earlier reviews, I can crack down pretty hard on writing style (or lack thereof) – I found this just an utterly compelling read. I had to know what happened next, where this all was leading. I was a little unsatisfied in the ending, but I guess that’s why it’s just part one of a series. I’ve definitely got the next on my library holds.
Bingo Square: Cannonballer Says!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.