Title: The Night Tiger
Author: Yangsze Choo
Publication Date: February 12, 2019
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Format: NetGalley eARC

Confession: ever since reading The Astonishing Color of After, I will forever read books that involve the belief that the soul has 49 days to settle its affairs and move on before it gets trapped on Earth.

Not even gonna apologize for that. It’s one of my favorite beliefs with how it’s worked into stories, and it’s honestly the thing that immediately attracted me to this book. Saw that, and I knew I had to read it. Lucky for me, this book has so much more to offer than that.

The Night Tiger is a murder mystery, wrapped in a fine coat of supernatural, and sprinkled with just a touch of fate. By the end, you’ll find yourself wondering what was real and what was just superstition.

This one was hard to rate, because it didn’t feel quite five stars to me. But I did immediately rush off to check out the author’s other work, so I rounded up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

❧ This book is just rife with the supernatural and superstitions, which lends it a really spooky atmosphere that’ll lead you to question what’s real and what’s not.

There’s numerology, which is really fascinating in particular, because in Chinese, numbers sound similar to other words, and that can determine whether the number is seen positively or negatively, based on this association. There’s a hint of fate or destiny in this in that souls can be somehow bonded or fated to be together (not necessarily romantically, but just part of each other’s lives). There’s even the idea of weretigers, and the debate of whether or not a human can transform into a tiger.

All of this blends quite beautifully into the historical setting to create a magical realism that seems quite plausible in the real world, for the most part.

I mean, if you believe in those things, of course. Which I’d like to, because who wouldn’t like to be able to transform into a tiger?!

❧ Being that this is historical fiction, true to the time period, the British come in and just British everything up, like they do.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the British. Really. But colonialism has always been an ugly thing, and this book does a good job of highlighting just what that means for the local people. For example, while working at the dance hall, Jin Li is forced to take an English name and look as English as possible to appeal to the patrons.

There’s a very thinly veiled (and sometimes blatant) line of prejudice running through this book, which is realistic but also sometimes hard to read.

Because wow, people can be jerks. The Malaysians, of course, are second-class citizens to the British, who have the most money, who live in the best houses, who hire the “natives” as servants and take them as mistresses, etc. There’s also this very obvious assumption that if you’re British and you’re in Malaysia, it’s because you’re running from something in England, because that’s obviously the only reason you’d go there.

❧ Oh, my aching misogyny.

1930s in Malaysia? Not a great time for women. Hopefully, this shouldn’t surprise you. This is one of those things that’s true to the time period, but also super frustrating to read because you want justice for the characters and there’s obviously just not going to be any.

Jin Li is smart and has *gasp* aspirations to, like, do something with her life other than be a wife and seamstress? Blasphemy, I know, but hold the stones a minute, because she can’t.

Of course she can’t. Her step-father forbids it, and she has no means to really disobey him. The part of the arc I liked the best was her attempting to anyway and trying desperately to find a way for her and her mother to be safe and happy, despite being forced to live in the shadows of the men around them.

❧ There’s a really neat thread running through this story where all the main characters are named after Confucius’ Five Virtues.

I can’t really say too much about this, because while the connection is stated early on, part of the fun is discovering just what this means for the novel. What I will say is that I liked how this was done and the extra level of superstition and fate and oneness this brings to the story.

❧ Move over werewolves, there’s a new beast in town, and it’s called a weretiger.

Well, allegedly. My favorite thing about this is that it’s never concretely stated whether this is a thing or not. You get to decide for yourself. I’d like to decide yes, please, because I love the idea of it, but you know, William in the story doesn’t and that’s cool, too.

Like a lot of the supernatural elements in this book, it’s easy to make a case both for and against the weretiger actually existing. There’s a lot that can be explained off by one part coincidence and one part self-fulfilling prophecy based on superstition.

I’m a fan of this sort of open-endedness in magical realism, and I thought it worked nicely here.

❧ The romance was … problematic. And also a little rapey and stalkerish.

I can’t really say much about it for fear of spoilers, but I didn’t have a problem with it for the same reason other people did. I was just a little creeped out by how possessive the guy was.

And you know the saddest thing? This was the best possible outcome for Ji Lin.

Which wow, if anything makes your blood boil, that right there should. I’m not saying the love interest was a bad person, necessarily (and he clearly cared deeply for Ji Lin), but it really highlights how truly little autonomy women had in this society. It was just sort of hard to read.

❧ The end was a little too open, where it felt like it didn’t fully conclude, and some of the plot points felt like they were left dangling a bit.

I think this is a symptom of the book trying to do so dang much all at the same time, to the point where not everything felt completely finished. It almost feels like there could be a sequel, and I wouldn’t be opposed to that, but as far as I know, this was meant to be a standalone.

This was a buddy read with Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads and we did a joint discussion, which you can find on her blog here. This discussion has spoilers.

It was also ridiculously fun. BUT WAIT! Before you rush off to read the discussion, I thought it’d be fun to take a moment and get to know the discussees. Discussers? The people behind the words, okay? So we’ve got a little The Night Tiger themed getting to know us section.

Leelynn: Chemist for some reason. I think I wanted to be able to find a cure for diabetes and save my grandpa from getting more sick.

Sammie: Paleontologist? I’m pretty sure I was one of the few three-year-olds who knew what that was, and by the time I was five, I was really tired of explaining it to adults. Especially because then they would say, “Oh, like an archaeologist?” No, yo, not like an archaeologist. Like a paleontologist. I fear my intentions weren’t anywhere near as noble as Leelynn’s. I just like dinosaurs.

Leelynn: Favorite superstition is that when you drop something or are clumsy, someone is thinking about you. My favorite supernatural being is totally a vampire. I’m a vampire ho. Or can I say mermaids? Because I’m a mermaid ho even more.

Sammie: My favorite superstition is the old-school Egyptian belief that cats are sacred creatures that bring good luck and also guard against evil spirits. I have three cats. They don’t guard against jack squat. Not even mice, which is quite literally the only thing in their job description. My favorite supernatural being, though, has to be Djinn, because they’re super powerful and on the level of angels, basically, but also come in many different forms and can be either good or bad. So basically, humans on steroids and with a couple million years of evolution behind them.

Leelynn: I would want mine to be wisdom, because I’m always trying to learn more.

Sammie: I’d want mine to be He, which is harmony.

Leelynn: A place where I can see my grandpa again, and we can eat all the amazing foods that we haven’t had in a long time and access to all the books that I could ever read, next to a beach so I can go swimming or just sit on a chair and watch the sunrise and sunset whenever I want.

Sammie: I just want mine to have dragons. Really, I’m easy to please. Instead of a train, I’d be okay with people moving on to the next life on the back of a dragon, because what a way to go. Also, massive, gigantic libraries, built in Gothic architecture, with stained glass windows and all the books you can possibly imagine. Oh, and rolly ladders, and librarians that look the other way as you ride them because they totally get it.

Leelynn: I like the name Amina because it means truthful and trustworthy.

Sammie: I’ve always loved the name Mahia (which means life and earth), so I’d go with that one.

Leelynn: 7 has always been my favorite number, and I’m honestly not sure why but I just feel happy thinking about it.

Sammie: 8 has always been my favorite number, and I don’t even remember why. Can I steal Kid Death’s reasoning and say it’s because of its perfect, beautiful symmetry? Yeah, we’ll go with that.

Okay, now that you know us a little better, head over to Leelynn’s blog and check out our buddy read discussion.

What are some of your favorite myths or superstitions? If you could be a were-animal, what would you be?