Welcome to Litsy!

This was a low pick. It‘s another solid novella in the Singing Hills Cycle, a creepy little tale of famine, hunger, and power. But it ranks lower for me than the others. What I missed here was how the other books play more intricately with ideas of storytelling, making me examine and re-examine the perspectives of both storyteller & audience, and how stories twist & turn and reveal & conceal. Still: I‘m all in and will read the next in the series!

I have a theory that each of Cleric Chih‘s stories is about or based around another type of story. This one is about stories of food, stories about hunger, cookbooks, recipes, and famine.

5/5

Chih travels to Baolin where they plan to gather stories about the famine that struck the area, but Chih is captured by the magistrate who would prefer to control what the world know about Baolin's famine.

This was a dark book about the tragedy of famine and what desperate people are capable of, but I thought it was well done. I think I love the books in this series the most where there are multiple stories explaining one event.

#netgalley

And finished! Note: I received this via Netgalley, with the expectation that I would review it.

Aaaand I've gobbled it up so quickly (sort of makes sense for a book about famine). It made me realise I don't remember the first couple of books in the series super well, and that makes me tempted to reread. This one's a harsh one, a sad and hungry one. It does well at that.

Yessss. I might even start reading it today, once I'm done with The Baby Dragon Cafe. Nghi Vo's an auto-read for me, especially the Singing Hills books.