I flew through this novella.

I loved everything about it: the setting, the characters, the language.

The stunningly beautiful Fung Cheung visits a coffee shop where he witnesses an altercation between a handsy customer and a waitress. He intervenes, defending the woman – wrecking the place and getting the waitress fired in the process. Cheung's ugly companion, Tet Sang, pays the waitress and the cafe owner for their troubles. Only he gets more than he bargained for when the waitress decides to join their gang. ( )

This is one of the rare books where I picked it up at the library, semi-randomly, read it, loved it, and shortly thereafter had to go out and buy my own copy of it to keep on my shelves.

It's a queer little wuxia tale of a sweaty group of found-family bandits, with Malay cultural influences and a lovely dry humor. I absolutely loved the world and Cho's writing style. I would love to read like five more of these. ( )

Amazing ( )

The first chapter was so much fun and the book was so promising, but in the end I just found it alright.
This is a wuxia inspired story about a group of bandits and a nun that are trying to protect and sell some sacred objects. Even though it was presented like that, there isn't much action in this story.
The book is really short and I wish all of the bandits had been introduced in a better way since I had no idea how many people were part of this group at first. I think one of the characters was only mentioned near the middle of it, but he was supposedly always there from the start.
There were some choices in the writing style that seemed weird to me, like how often the word "also" was used at the end of sentences. However, English is not my first language so I can't comment too much on that.
The narrative follows mainly two characters and their bond, leaving the rest of the group undeveloped in a way that didn't make me care for them. I understand that part of this is because the book is so short though.
I felt like I needed some real world knowledge that served as inspiration for this story and since that was lacking in the book I was left with some questions and I was surprised when there was suddenly a gun and I was imagining a world without them up until that point.
Overall, it's a quick and fine read, but I expected it to be more fun and engaging giving the great start. ( )

If you’re not familiar with some aspects of Chinese culture you may feel a bit like you’ve been dropped in the deep end, but it is a fantasy so we’re used to that. Enjoyable story and interesting characters, I would absolutely read a novel set in this world. In fact, the ending of this novella seems like a perfect setup for a novel… ( )