I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review here and on my blog, Samwise Reviews. I was really impressed with the way this book was written. Set in China during World War 2 it introduced us to many different characters, and it did a very good job at keeping them all separate. The book switched perspective every few chapters and invited us into someone else's viewpoint and background and often this can get confusing or tangled, but I didn't find that in this case. I'm using this for the "A Book That Leaves You Thinking" part of my 2020 reading challenge because it's not a story you can move on from quickly. Each character goes through a lot of trials and it was really interesting to learn how they handled each one and the repercussions from them years later.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley. I am providing an honest review voluntarily.

The premise of the book sounded great. The bones of the story were good, but there were definitely some things I didn't like about the book.

TRIGGER WARNING: bombing, gore, sexual assault, and death of pets

First and foremost, the text was overly descriptive, and and was heavily overburdened by information that was unrelated to the plot. The descriptions were so incredibly detailed that it took me off topic and made it easy for the plot to get lost. There was a lot of telling rather than showing, leading to chapters that were excessively long and kind of boring. The entire story is narrated through the point of view of various characters, including two pet dogs. The chapter with the dogs really lost me. As much as I love dogs, the story being told from their point of view involved complex humanized emotions that wasn't believable.

The entire time I read, I waited to find out what actually happened. The story went from the future and worked backwards, with scattered periods out of order. I found myself often getting distracted, and waiting for something to happen. There was a lot of focus on the status of a woman who was sexually assaulted, and I didn't especially love how it was handled by any of the characters. When the end of the book finally arrived, the final chapter would have been sufficient, except for the presence of an epilogue that was completely unnecessary.

Overall, the book had so much potential, but maybe because it was originally written in a language other than it was translated to, it left something lacking for me.

A beautiful, heartfelt, heartbreaking story about three men connected by one woman in the Japanese occupation of China in World War II.

It begins with a promise by three men at a lakeside on the night when the Japanese surrendered - a promise to meet back at Yuehu Lake when they died. A promise kept by all three, though the first one to die, Pastor Billy, had a very long wait for the others to join him. Liu Zhaohu, a young soldier during the war, is the next one to return to the lakeside. Finally, seventy years after Billy returns, gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson unites the three of them once more. However, they want to do more than just share memories of the war. They each want to know the others’ memories and experiences with the girl that connects them together.

This girl is, to Liu Zhaohu, Ah Yan - meaning ‘swallow’. She is also Stella to Billy. To Ian, she is Wende - ‘wind’. Each name has been given with love and admiration, and each man loved her in their own way.

As they recount the war, we also learn of Ah Yan’s life, and all the tragedy and heartbreak and horrific things she experienced. But then also the way that she survived and built a life for herself.

I loved this story so much. It has all the feels. I had some issues with it, namely:

— that one chapter told from the perspective of two dogs in love (whaaaat was that?)
— the fact that during the time all three men knew Ah Yan, she was only fourteen to sixteen years old. We don’t really find out how they actually felt about her until near the end, but it’s implied earlier on. I know this has a historical setting that is factual, but I felt so uncomfortable with her being so young and the men having feelings towards her.
— we only get the perspective of the three men, and yet I never really felt that I had gotten to know them. I felt most for Liu Zhaohu, but even then I didn’t feel much towards him either.

The book is primarily about Ah Yan, yet we don’t hear directly from her. It’s an interesting device used, in that we learn her story, and feel so much for her, yet never hear from her directly. I suppose it’s because so much of her life was basically directed by the males around her, until later on. Her life is shaped by them. Yet we also see her inner strength and her achievements that stemmed from that.

It’s a really beautiful story, and the writing is wonderful. I like that it centres around Ah Yan rather than just the men and the war, and I like that we’re given insight into the lives of the villagers during the war too. It really shows how affected everybody was by WWII, not only the soldiers on the front line.

I’m happy I was able to read this (thanks to Amazon First Reads), and I enjoyed it immensely. Definitely a novel that will give you much to mull over, and give a barrage of emotions at the same time. A lovely read!

A slow burn, which weaves together the narratives of three very different men – told by their ghosts – about the years they spent in a brutal war, and the woman they fell in love with. Not for the faint of heart, Ling doesn’t shy away from the atrocities of the time or the flaws of her own characters. Nonetheless, the novel is a beautiful work of storytelling.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.