Black Water Sister Discussion Post

[latespring]

Hello!

Here's the post to discuss as you read Black Water Sister. Unlike for Station Eternity, this will be the only discussion post for the book until our final discussion (July 13th)!

Also, the winner of our poll for next book after Black Water Sister was "The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera"!

As suggested in the comments of the last post, we can end up reading the rest of our runners up in the order they were voted in: Middlemarch by George Eliot, Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh, How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang.

Here is the code for spoilers, please make sure to use it in the comments when discussing spoiler-y elements of Black Water Sister!

<details>
<summary>SUMMARY TEXT HERE</summary>
Spoilers here.
</details>

Comments

[bookishdagger]

So I actually read this book closer to when it came out and felt pretty meh about it…thankfully I liked it a lot more on reread!! I think its biggest strength is the vividness of the setting and external conflicts. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the depiction of Malaysia but the way the author built out the setting felt very tangible (saying this as someone who rarely thinks about setting in her own writing LOL). And all the

FULL BOOK SPOILERS

medium/gang warfare/dealing with corrupt businessmen

stuff was super engaging to read in a plot sense. For the most part I really liked our main character too—I loved the simmering anger and frustration buried under 80 layers of repression.

One thing I did struggle with re: Jess as a main character was the status of her career. We’re told many times that she’s depressed and unemployed, but I feel like there’s a piece missing between “goes to Harvard” and “trying to find any job she can get even if she’s overqualified”. The book isn’t necessarily About that, so it’s not a huuuge gaping flaw or anything, it’s just something that held me back from fully loving this book.