Yam Cake reviewed The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li
天啊, I wish they'd make this into a TV series.
5 stars
One night, when I was dealing with a bout of insomnia, I went through about 1/3 of the book. The next morning, I woke up hearing the soundtrack of The Haunting of Bly Manor in my head. No doubt this book will get score many comparisons to Bly Manor or Hill House, for its central theme: Family secrets contained within a crumbling mansion.
But The Manor of Dreams isn't just about toxic family secrets that can spread like weeds and crush you under its weight. It's also about tight-lipped Chinese family dynamics, Hollywood's indifference to the stories of people who look like Vivian Yin, railroads built with blood and sweat, abusive relationships and how family can go from being inseparable to willfully estranged. Christina Li deftly weaves together a terrifying tapestry of fate, without it feeling contrived or trite. One's fate is not the work of some mysterious curse …
One night, when I was dealing with a bout of insomnia, I went through about 1/3 of the book. The next morning, I woke up hearing the soundtrack of The Haunting of Bly Manor in my head. No doubt this book will get score many comparisons to Bly Manor or Hill House, for its central theme: Family secrets contained within a crumbling mansion.
But The Manor of Dreams isn't just about toxic family secrets that can spread like weeds and crush you under its weight. It's also about tight-lipped Chinese family dynamics, Hollywood's indifference to the stories of people who look like Vivian Yin, railroads built with blood and sweat, abusive relationships and how family can go from being inseparable to willfully estranged. Christina Li deftly weaves together a terrifying tapestry of fate, without it feeling contrived or trite. One's fate is not the work of some mysterious curse or necessarily preordained, unless you've made one bad choice that leads to another, with consequences that just keep on snowballing. So, you know, go have that difficult conversation or whatever, before the only choice you have is to persist in this doomed world you have created, to quote a certain video game series.
If you like spooky stories and have been itching for a tale with Chinese and queer elements, don't miss out on this one. I promise you're going to feel right at home.