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Juniper Song #1
Follow Her Home: Juniper Song #1
'Compelling from first to last page.' DENISE MINA
Meet Juniper Song, an under employed, twenty-something, Raymond-Chandler-loving, Korean American woman from downtown LA.
When a friend asks Song to carry out surveillance on his father, she figures she doesn't have anything better to do - plus she gets to indulge her Philip Marlowe fantasies. But barely half a day into playing private eye someone has knocked her unconscious and left a dead body in the trunk of her car.
Meet Juniper Song, an under employed, twenty-something, Raymond-Chandler-loving, Korean American woman from downtown LA.
When a friend asks Song to carry out surveillance on his father, she figures she doesn't have anything better to do - plus she gets to indulge her Philip Marlowe fantasies. But barely half a day into playing private eye someone has knocked her unconscious and left a dead body in the trunk of her car.
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 16, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 256 reviews
May 6, 2016
This is the best book I've ever written. I hope you guys like it okay and don't judge me for rating my own book. I waited until I had 100 ratings in, like maybe that would make it better? I don't know, man. Social media is hard.
June 27, 2021
As research for a novel I'm writing, I'm reading detective fiction and stealing everything of value. My story takes place in L.A. of the early '90s, but I'm picking up hats and trying them on like we did before the pandemic. Given that Steph Cha devotes much of the first 5% of her debut novel Follow Her Home to women's footwear, I didn't get far with this one, abandoning it after one chapter. The focus on shoes wasn't the problem. This novel is two left shoes.
The story takes place in present day L.A. and debuts Juniper Song (the only positive note I can give Cha is that her protagonist has a good name), a "twentysomething" who still surrounds and involves herself in the lives of her college pals, one of which, Luke, suspects his father of cheating on his fragile mother with an incessantly cute office girl named Lori Lim (they're Korean). Wanting to help him out, Song is on the case, guided by her devoted following of the fiction of Raymond Chandler and his private detective Philip Marlowe.
There are major problems with this novel in paragraph 1 on page 1.
It was about ten o’clock on a Friday in mid-July, the Los Angeles night warm and dry, the only wind rising from the whoosh and zoom of traffic on Rossmore. I was wearing a slinky black dress, black patent leather platform pumps, silver cascade earrings, and a black lambskin clutch. I was perfumed, manicured, and impeccably coiffed. I was everything a half-employed twentysomething should be on the sober end of a Friday night. I was calling on an open bar at Luke's new apartment, ready to spend a little time and respectability on a blurry and colorful evening.
My first problem is telling instead of showing. Cha doesn't show us that Song is half-employed. Showing us would demand taking the effort to, say, show her character arrive in a beater. Or worse, a bus. How embarrassing. Or maybe she's counting out change to pay her taxi driver (the novel was published in 2013, in a time before Uber) and comments to her driver that her employment situation is dire. What about party guests cracking at her vehicle or her wardrobe or her shoes? Nah, that would require too much effort. It's way easier to just tell the reader that Song is half-employed.
In the second sentence we have a wardrobe breakdown. Before her job, her thoughts, her name even, we get her fashion taste. I don't have a problem with authors focusing on whatever they're interested in. Tom Clancy wrote about submarines. Cha seems to love shoes. Fine. Write The Hunt For Red October of women's shoes. What do a woman's shoes say about her? Where is she going? Where's she been? (Thanks, Forrest Gump!). Perhaps Song makes her own shoes. Maybe she uses this expertise to unlock doors that idiots at the party have closed to them. Nah. Too much effort. Cha would rather flip the catalog to the next page.
So far we have signs of a lazily written and superficial book. Song proceeds to have a conversation with Luke that only two characters in a plot could have, not two people at a party with hip hop blaring and guests shouting over the music. Luke is concerned that his father might be cheating on his mother with the drunk girl HE WAS JUST TALKING TO. First of all, this struck me as a woman writing a male character as if he was more like a she. Young men don't often dwell on whether or not their girlfriends are cheating, much less their father. Nor do most of us, at that age, worry about how it might affect our relationship with Dad.
Second, if Luke had suspicions about Lori, why not investigate himself? It's his apartment, his party. She is pretty wasted. Why not drive her home, get her talking? Why involve Song? Well, maybe he's a sensitive guy. Maybe he's been trying for a month to get answers from Lori and gotten nowhere. Maybe Cha could've shown Luke struggling to get answers out of Lori, or Song observing her friend acting strange. Nah, too much effort. Raymond Chandler opened each paragraph like a safe, but how many authors read Chandler?
I was thirteen when I read The Big Sleep. It was my introduction to Marlowe, to hard-boiled detective fiction, to the very notion of noir, and I could not get enough. As I grew my last three inches, I went from book to book, consuming everything that was Philip Marlowe. I savored his words, studied his manners and methods. I carried him with me like an idol.
Whoops! Cha has a crush on Raymond Chandler and his world weary private dick Philip Marlowe so much that not only is Luke's apartment building named the Marlowe, but Song launches into an admission of how much she adores Chandler and has patterned her life off Marlowe. This would be like Chandler devoting the first two chapters of The Big Sleep to how dope Arthur Conan Doyle was, or Marlowe talking about the exploits Sherlock Holmes. Starting a book talking about other books seems more like blogging than fiction writing.
I almost forgot to mention that the novel begins at a party in which no one throws a punch, gets sick as a dog, disappears into a closet with a party guest for rude and unprotected sex, gives in to anger, excess or lust or does anything that celebrates the human condition in all its messy glory. Maybe Cha should've included some John Steinbeck on her reading list.
Finally, it seems the novel is set up with very low stakes. Finding out whether Luke's dad is cheating on his mom is not very compelling. Sure, he mentions his mother's unstable health, but it's not as if Luke is going to fix that by finding out his dad is screwing an intern. Maybe the case becomes more complex. Maybe Lori ends up dead. But on the basis of Chapter 1, I had no interest in continuing a novel that tells instead of shows and is mainly about a better mystery writer and shoes.
The story takes place in present day L.A. and debuts Juniper Song (the only positive note I can give Cha is that her protagonist has a good name), a "twentysomething" who still surrounds and involves herself in the lives of her college pals, one of which, Luke, suspects his father of cheating on his fragile mother with an incessantly cute office girl named Lori Lim (they're Korean). Wanting to help him out, Song is on the case, guided by her devoted following of the fiction of Raymond Chandler and his private detective Philip Marlowe.
There are major problems with this novel in paragraph 1 on page 1.
It was about ten o’clock on a Friday in mid-July, the Los Angeles night warm and dry, the only wind rising from the whoosh and zoom of traffic on Rossmore. I was wearing a slinky black dress, black patent leather platform pumps, silver cascade earrings, and a black lambskin clutch. I was perfumed, manicured, and impeccably coiffed. I was everything a half-employed twentysomething should be on the sober end of a Friday night. I was calling on an open bar at Luke's new apartment, ready to spend a little time and respectability on a blurry and colorful evening.
My first problem is telling instead of showing. Cha doesn't show us that Song is half-employed. Showing us would demand taking the effort to, say, show her character arrive in a beater. Or worse, a bus. How embarrassing. Or maybe she's counting out change to pay her taxi driver (the novel was published in 2013, in a time before Uber) and comments to her driver that her employment situation is dire. What about party guests cracking at her vehicle or her wardrobe or her shoes? Nah, that would require too much effort. It's way easier to just tell the reader that Song is half-employed.
In the second sentence we have a wardrobe breakdown. Before her job, her thoughts, her name even, we get her fashion taste. I don't have a problem with authors focusing on whatever they're interested in. Tom Clancy wrote about submarines. Cha seems to love shoes. Fine. Write The Hunt For Red October of women's shoes. What do a woman's shoes say about her? Where is she going? Where's she been? (Thanks, Forrest Gump!). Perhaps Song makes her own shoes. Maybe she uses this expertise to unlock doors that idiots at the party have closed to them. Nah. Too much effort. Cha would rather flip the catalog to the next page.
So far we have signs of a lazily written and superficial book. Song proceeds to have a conversation with Luke that only two characters in a plot could have, not two people at a party with hip hop blaring and guests shouting over the music. Luke is concerned that his father might be cheating on his mother with the drunk girl HE WAS JUST TALKING TO. First of all, this struck me as a woman writing a male character as if he was more like a she. Young men don't often dwell on whether or not their girlfriends are cheating, much less their father. Nor do most of us, at that age, worry about how it might affect our relationship with Dad.
Second, if Luke had suspicions about Lori, why not investigate himself? It's his apartment, his party. She is pretty wasted. Why not drive her home, get her talking? Why involve Song? Well, maybe he's a sensitive guy. Maybe he's been trying for a month to get answers from Lori and gotten nowhere. Maybe Cha could've shown Luke struggling to get answers out of Lori, or Song observing her friend acting strange. Nah, too much effort. Raymond Chandler opened each paragraph like a safe, but how many authors read Chandler?
I was thirteen when I read The Big Sleep. It was my introduction to Marlowe, to hard-boiled detective fiction, to the very notion of noir, and I could not get enough. As I grew my last three inches, I went from book to book, consuming everything that was Philip Marlowe. I savored his words, studied his manners and methods. I carried him with me like an idol.
Whoops! Cha has a crush on Raymond Chandler and his world weary private dick Philip Marlowe so much that not only is Luke's apartment building named the Marlowe, but Song launches into an admission of how much she adores Chandler and has patterned her life off Marlowe. This would be like Chandler devoting the first two chapters of The Big Sleep to how dope Arthur Conan Doyle was, or Marlowe talking about the exploits Sherlock Holmes. Starting a book talking about other books seems more like blogging than fiction writing.
I almost forgot to mention that the novel begins at a party in which no one throws a punch, gets sick as a dog, disappears into a closet with a party guest for rude and unprotected sex, gives in to anger, excess or lust or does anything that celebrates the human condition in all its messy glory. Maybe Cha should've included some John Steinbeck on her reading list.
Finally, it seems the novel is set up with very low stakes. Finding out whether Luke's dad is cheating on his mom is not very compelling. Sure, he mentions his mother's unstable health, but it's not as if Luke is going to fix that by finding out his dad is screwing an intern. Maybe the case becomes more complex. Maybe Lori ends up dead. But on the basis of Chapter 1, I had no interest in continuing a novel that tells instead of shows and is mainly about a better mystery writer and shoes.
July 7, 2021
Steph Cha’s Follow Her Home was first published in 2013 and now rereleased by Faber Publications in 2021. It is the first in a trilogy of Juniper Song stories about a twenty-something Korean American woman living in Los Angeles. A long-time friend asks Song to check out his father and as a Raymond Chandler devotee, she is happy to act as a private eye. Things turn bad rapidly, with Song being knocked out, only to discover a dead body in her car boot. An unusual hero, with plenty of Philip Marlowe references as motivation for Song’s wannabe crime solving detective. A most entertaining page turner, with a four-star rating.
July 19, 2020
I usually have a pretty good grasp on a book's rating halfway through it (at the very latest). So when I'd almost hit the 3/4 mark for Follow Her Home and it remained at a middling three stars, I was pretty sure this was it.
Except… I was wrong. This book became so much more than its premise or its protagonist. It is unbearably raw and elegiac at times—saturated with grief, desperation, violence, bloodshed, irrevocable hurt. All of it ultimately eclipsed by death.
I picked this up book from my local library because I'm currently binging books featuring East Asian protagonists—Eileen Wilks' Tempting Danger, Riley Redgate's Noteworthy, F.C. Yee's The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, to name a few—and Juniper Song, being Korean-American, fit that to a tee. Not to mention, I love myself a good mystery.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
The story goes like this: Juniper Song is a twenty-six-year-old "overeducated bum," a transient who's never quite been able to commit. Not to a job, not to an interest, and certainly no man. She's been like this, adrift, since she solved the mystery surrounding her sister Iris.
In snippets that alternate with the main mystery, it's gradually revealed to us what happened to Iris all those years ago, and why this has catalyzed such apathy in Song—one of my favourite parts of the novel, to be honest.
In the present day, Song’s best friend Luke asks her to look into whether his father is having an affair with one of his younger employees, the gorgeous (if airheaded) Lori Lim. But things quickly take a turn for the unexpected and macabre as Song is knocked out, awakening to a corpse in her car trunk. It's now up to her—and her love for Marlowe’s deductive skills, along with her own resourcefulness— to catch the murderer, and maybe even find the spark that’s missing in her own life along the way.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
I was initially convinced I'd give this 3 stars because I'm not a huge fan of noir, so some true-crime/mystery aspects weren't particularly engaging for me. Also, just about all of the Marlowe references flew over my head (Chandler, who?).
But I did enjoy Steph Cha's unconventionally beautiful prose. I'm tired of clichés and hackneyed tropes, and Cha's quirky metaphors and unusual similes were IMMENSELY refreshing. The book is thus rife with descriptive language, each detail conveyed using offbeat comparisons:
This is how I want to write—with fervour and originality, not triteness and age-old adages. And Steph Cha is a master of this: using her own words, instead of recycling others', an admittedly easy trap in which authors can become ensnared.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
At the book's climax, I realized I'd been wrong about my rating all along. Suddenly, as all of the threads came together—the story behind Iris, and why she broke Song; the identity of the murderer and his henchman—the book became so much more poignant, more gripping, gritty and real and all the more beautiful for it.
This story became so much more than just solving a mystery. It became a tale of revelations and betrayal, and, ultimately, love.
Let it be said, there was NO ROMANCE in this story. None at all. But there was love, whetted down to its darkest and most vulnerable forms. Here is a novel whose rawness lies not in romantic angst between a guy and a girl, but rather in the exploration of the darkness present in every person. How far are you willing to prove your love?
At its base, Follow Her Home tells of a mother who sells her daughter’s body in the hopes of a better future for her;
FINAL VERDICT: It’s been a long time since a book has proven me wrong, for the better. Then again, it’s also been a long time since I've read anything that's painted grief with such sorrowful simplicity: I implore you to read this.
Except… I was wrong. This book became so much more than its premise or its protagonist. It is unbearably raw and elegiac at times—saturated with grief, desperation, violence, bloodshed, irrevocable hurt. All of it ultimately eclipsed by death.
I picked this up book from my local library because I'm currently binging books featuring East Asian protagonists—Eileen Wilks' Tempting Danger, Riley Redgate's Noteworthy, F.C. Yee's The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, to name a few—and Juniper Song, being Korean-American, fit that to a tee. Not to mention, I love myself a good mystery.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
The story goes like this: Juniper Song is a twenty-six-year-old "overeducated bum," a transient who's never quite been able to commit. Not to a job, not to an interest, and certainly no man. She's been like this, adrift, since she solved the mystery surrounding her sister Iris.
In snippets that alternate with the main mystery, it's gradually revealed to us what happened to Iris all those years ago, and why this has catalyzed such apathy in Song—one of my favourite parts of the novel, to be honest.
In the present day, Song’s best friend Luke asks her to look into whether his father is having an affair with one of his younger employees, the gorgeous (if airheaded) Lori Lim. But things quickly take a turn for the unexpected and macabre as Song is knocked out, awakening to a corpse in her car trunk. It's now up to her—and her love for Marlowe’s deductive skills, along with her own resourcefulness— to catch the murderer, and maybe even find the spark that’s missing in her own life along the way.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
I was initially convinced I'd give this 3 stars because I'm not a huge fan of noir, so some true-crime/mystery aspects weren't particularly engaging for me. Also, just about all of the Marlowe references flew over my head (Chandler, who?).
But I did enjoy Steph Cha's unconventionally beautiful prose. I'm tired of clichés and hackneyed tropes, and Cha's quirky metaphors and unusual similes were IMMENSELY refreshing. The book is thus rife with descriptive language, each detail conveyed using offbeat comparisons:
My tongue felt like a dead oyster in my mouth and my voice passed through the thick sieve of air around my ears like piano music smothered by a stuck pedal. A paralyzing exhaustion washed through my body, unsnapping every sinew...
He looked straight into my eyes. I saw the green-black eyes, and now they were familiar, a dark-forest version of a pair I knew so well: lush, wet vibrancy crossed with branches and spiderwebs, wide, trembling pupils caught like flies.
Thick, cracked half-moons of ice crowded vase-tall glasses filled with the cool amber tea. The sliced watermelon glistened, black seeds peering out like bright, wet hungry eyes.
This is how I want to write—with fervour and originality, not triteness and age-old adages. And Steph Cha is a master of this: using her own words, instead of recycling others', an admittedly easy trap in which authors can become ensnared.
◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️
At the book's climax, I realized I'd been wrong about my rating all along. Suddenly, as all of the threads came together—the story behind Iris, and why she broke Song; the identity of the murderer and his henchman—the book became so much more poignant, more gripping, gritty and real and all the more beautiful for it.
This story became so much more than just solving a mystery. It became a tale of revelations and betrayal, and, ultimately, love.
Let it be said, there was NO ROMANCE in this story. None at all. But there was love, whetted down to its darkest and most vulnerable forms. Here is a novel whose rawness lies not in romantic angst between a guy and a girl, but rather in the exploration of the darkness present in every person. How far are you willing to prove your love?
At its base, Follow Her Home tells of a mother who sells her daughter’s body in the hopes of a better future for her;
—a lonely man tethered to a wife whose depression has burnt away their love; to save her from herself, he will commit murder
—a young girl led so far astray by her pedophile that she, unable to be without him, will forsake her family for him
—a coward whose love for his father means that he will watch, wordlessly, the murder of his best friend in cold blood
—a brother so devoted he would kill and be killed
—and a man whose concern for his friend burnt so fiercely, he paid for it with his life.
Also interspersed into the main storyline is discussion of slut-shaming, victim-blaming, and racial fetishization, which is so, so important.
FINAL VERDICT: It’s been a long time since a book has proven me wrong, for the better. Then again, it’s also been a long time since I've read anything that's painted grief with such sorrowful simplicity: I implore you to read this.
July 5, 2018
Mystery novels are one of the whitest genres around, so when I heard about Steph Cha's Juniper Song series I was very ready to have a different point of view. And sure enough this sent me to the kinds of places you don't see too much in mystery novels. Cha is able to explore the fetishization of Asian women in a way that is natural to the story instead of just using that fetishization as a plot point.
This is a solid amateur-detective novel, with flashbacks tying us to Juniper's past and personal life that keep the pace moving. It avoids pretty much all the tropes that drive me up a wall. Juniper's references to Marlowe and old-school detective fiction wear thin very quickly, and I would have liked to be able to see the homages without being constantly reminded of them.
This is a solid amateur-detective novel, with flashbacks tying us to Juniper's past and personal life that keep the pace moving. It avoids pretty much all the tropes that drive me up a wall. Juniper's references to Marlowe and old-school detective fiction wear thin very quickly, and I would have liked to be able to see the homages without being constantly reminded of them.
February 15, 2013
Read my full review: http://bit.ly/XexhUn
My opinion: What a fun little read this book was! I had numerous review books going at the same time so it took me a bit longer to get it reviewed, but it wasn't by my choice. I had to force myself to put it down! I loved the main character Juniper Song, who fancied herself a female Phillip Marlowe...that should say it all!! She was sarcastic, but an intelligent sarcasm. The storyline was laid out with a lot of quirky characters that fed beautifully into the main character. A bonus was just good writin'!
My opinion: What a fun little read this book was! I had numerous review books going at the same time so it took me a bit longer to get it reviewed, but it wasn't by my choice. I had to force myself to put it down! I loved the main character Juniper Song, who fancied herself a female Phillip Marlowe...that should say it all!! She was sarcastic, but an intelligent sarcasm. The storyline was laid out with a lot of quirky characters that fed beautifully into the main character. A bonus was just good writin'!
May 20, 2019
Juniper Song -- generally called just Song -- is a young single woman of Korean extraction living in LA and with a lifelong addiction to the works of Raymond Chandler, specifically the Marlowe novels. The opening few lines of this novel sold me on it, vibrant as they are with the timbre Marlowe's voice:
As Song takes on a seemingly simple task -- her best friend asks her to see if his powerful dad's making a fool of himself with a young Korean babe -- and then discovers it's far more lethal than she could have expected, the echo of Marlowe rapidly fades out, and after a few pages the style is more ordinary, even if punctuated by frequent references to Chandler/Marlowe and some vivid, albeit non-Chandleresque turns of phrase that Chandler might have admired:
Matching the prose style, the tale itself rapidly deserts all notions of being a Marlowe homage to become a far more orthodox contemporary mystery. At the same time, though, it's bringing in a separate strand, in the form of Song's backstory as she attempted, with eventually tragic results, to save her kid sister from the clutches of a sexual predator. Her theme here is not straightforwardly pedophilia, as you might expect (the sister would be of age in many areas, though not California), but the fetishization of, and predation upon, younger Asiatic women by older white men. It's not a facet of society I've ever particularly thought about before, and Cha's exploration of it, through Song, was revelatory.
The vitality of Cha's prose leads her into some pitfalls. I noted several examples (as well as wondering what "the Buckingham Palace" was on p189), of which here's just the first:
Such occasional hiccups were, I thought, a small price well worth paying for the general adventurousness of Cha's imagery, whose richness rarely interrupted the narrative's flow -- indeed, Follow Her Home is an extraordinarily readable book. In places, too, it's extraordinarily moving, too, because the themes that Cha touches on are often far from ephemeral: some of the pain feels very real.
I came away from Follow Her Home with oddly mixed feelings. I admired and enjoyed the novel greatly, yet at the same time it didn't give me the Chandler fix I'd anticipated on reading those opening lines. That said, Cha took her novel in the direction she thought it ought to go and it's beyond arrogant for me to suggest she should have conformed to other people's (i.e., my) expectations! Taken for what it is, Follow Her Home represents a pretty smashing debut and a very promising series opener.
It was about ten o'clock on a Friday in mid-July, the Los Angeles night warm and dry, the only wind rising from the whoosh and zoom of traffic on Rossmore. I was wearing a slinky black dress, black patent leather platform pumps, silver cascade earrings, and a black lambskin clutch. I was perfumed, manicured, and impeccably coiffed. I was everything a half-employed twentysomething should be on the sober end of a Friday night. [p1]
As Song takes on a seemingly simple task -- her best friend asks her to see if his powerful dad's making a fool of himself with a young Korean babe -- and then discovers it's far more lethal than she could have expected, the echo of Marlowe rapidly fades out, and after a few pages the style is more ordinary, even if punctuated by frequent references to Chandler/Marlowe and some vivid, albeit non-Chandleresque turns of phrase that Chandler might have admired:
The tower was shaped like a [cigarette] lighter by design. Even in the shadow of the US Bank building it stood massive and alluring, gleaming with promise. Find a big enough thumb, and I'll light the world on fire. [p106]
Matching the prose style, the tale itself rapidly deserts all notions of being a Marlowe homage to become a far more orthodox contemporary mystery. At the same time, though, it's bringing in a separate strand, in the form of Song's backstory as she attempted, with eventually tragic results, to save her kid sister from the clutches of a sexual predator. Her theme here is not straightforwardly pedophilia, as you might expect (the sister would be of age in many areas, though not California), but the fetishization of, and predation upon, younger Asiatic women by older white men. It's not a facet of society I've ever particularly thought about before, and Cha's exploration of it, through Song, was revelatory.
The vitality of Cha's prose leads her into some pitfalls. I noted several examples (as well as wondering what "the Buckingham Palace" was on p189), of which here's just the first:
He sat there like a girl on a lawn and stared at me, inky pupils bleeding outward, threatening to tar out the green. [p94]
Such occasional hiccups were, I thought, a small price well worth paying for the general adventurousness of Cha's imagery, whose richness rarely interrupted the narrative's flow -- indeed, Follow Her Home is an extraordinarily readable book. In places, too, it's extraordinarily moving, too, because the themes that Cha touches on are often far from ephemeral: some of the pain feels very real.
I came away from Follow Her Home with oddly mixed feelings. I admired and enjoyed the novel greatly, yet at the same time it didn't give me the Chandler fix I'd anticipated on reading those opening lines. That said, Cha took her novel in the direction she thought it ought to go and it's beyond arrogant for me to suggest she should have conformed to other people's (i.e., my) expectations! Taken for what it is, Follow Her Home represents a pretty smashing debut and a very promising series opener.
October 5, 2018
I’m usually graceful when I review first time novelists, so while there was a lot that annoyed me about Steph Cha’s debut, I generally enjoyed it and am going to lean mostly on the positives.
I love hard boiled/noir fiction. Apparently, so does Steph Cha and her main character (and author ancillary) Junipero Song. The book is littered with references to Chandler, Macdonald and Hammett, three of the greats (Macdondald is my personal favorite). I’m not sure it made the book great but it appealed to this reader.
Cha fancies her Junipero Song character a private eye in the Marlowe fashion, so she has her get invested in the typically simple case that turns out not to be all that it seems. Our heroine has to deal with sketchy characters, red herrings, and getting knocked out a few times (in the grand tradition of all PI novels), moving through the shady streets of LA with only gumption as her aide.
One big reason to read this book, aside from what I wrote above, is the perspective of a Korean woman instead of yet another white guy. Cha address racism, specifically the fetishization of Asian women by white men, and the effects that has on Korean womanhood. It’s not something I read about often in mystery fiction and, while I was aware of this particular strain of racism, I didn’t know enough about the impact it has on Asian (specifically Korean women). So it was good to learn.
There are a lot of negatives with this book: it’s poorly paced, the dialogue and characters could use some major work, Song’s backstory is interspersed throughout the narrative as a way to make the two cases look similar and I get why Cha did that but it takes from the momentum she builds in her story. Cha may admire Chandler but she is a long way to finding her own voice as a writer. These things combined prevented me from giving the book my standard grade 4-stars.
But I think the positives outweigh the negatives. I like Cha’s taste in writing and I think she’s on to something, even if it needs fine tuning. I’ll check out more of this series.
I love hard boiled/noir fiction. Apparently, so does Steph Cha and her main character (and author ancillary) Junipero Song. The book is littered with references to Chandler, Macdonald and Hammett, three of the greats (Macdondald is my personal favorite). I’m not sure it made the book great but it appealed to this reader.
Cha fancies her Junipero Song character a private eye in the Marlowe fashion, so she has her get invested in the typically simple case that turns out not to be all that it seems. Our heroine has to deal with sketchy characters, red herrings, and getting knocked out a few times (in the grand tradition of all PI novels), moving through the shady streets of LA with only gumption as her aide.
One big reason to read this book, aside from what I wrote above, is the perspective of a Korean woman instead of yet another white guy. Cha address racism, specifically the fetishization of Asian women by white men, and the effects that has on Korean womanhood. It’s not something I read about often in mystery fiction and, while I was aware of this particular strain of racism, I didn’t know enough about the impact it has on Asian (specifically Korean women). So it was good to learn.
There are a lot of negatives with this book: it’s poorly paced, the dialogue and characters could use some major work, Song’s backstory is interspersed throughout the narrative as a way to make the two cases look similar and I get why Cha did that but it takes from the momentum she builds in her story. Cha may admire Chandler but she is a long way to finding her own voice as a writer. These things combined prevented me from giving the book my standard grade 4-stars.
But I think the positives outweigh the negatives. I like Cha’s taste in writing and I think she’s on to something, even if it needs fine tuning. I’ll check out more of this series.
April 14, 2013
3.5 New series, new author and it shows early promise of being a very good one. Song is a Korean American, her hero is Chandler's Marlowe, which she quotes in various places throughout the novel, which I found to be great fun. Song is a character that is both flawed and heartbroken, which we find out the reason for while reading the book. There are many quirky and fun characters that fit perfectly in the story-line. The author has updated the darkness of Marlowe's LA, filled his mystery with wonderful characters, and given the reader a mystery that is both a slow reveal and a twisty mystery. ARC from publisher.
September 26, 2018
2.5 stars
See me discuss it in my August wrap up: https://youtu.be/plrKGeYsG24
See me discuss it in my August wrap up: https://youtu.be/plrKGeYsG24
May 16, 2020
Tripe. Poorly written, dimly plotted tripe. I have no problem with a writer wearing her Chandler worship on her sleeve. I’m as down with the Marlowe fandom as the next person, but this was just not very cool and mostly incompetent. Made me wonder if the author chose a nom de plume just to get filed next to her hero on bookshelves. (“And I would have got away with it too if it wasn’t for that meddling Michael Chabon!”)
None of this made the slightest bit of sense. For a plot that was supposed to hinge on a femme fatale for whom several men flip their lids it was deeply unsexy, even asexual, as if sexiness was something the author had only ever encountered in books and didn’t really believe in.
One example of clumsy writing, and I know it’s not fair to judge a book from a single sentence but this was so jarring and poorly edited that it stayed with me. “We traced our steps to the car.” It doesn’t mean anything. You don’t “trace your steps.” You “retrace your steps” when you want to find the same way back you took. You certainly don’t use it to leave your apartment and go to the car. It’s just silly high-school writing that an editor should have ironed out. The whole book has stuff like this. Weak writing propping up a genuinely daft plot. Really disappointing.
None of this made the slightest bit of sense. For a plot that was supposed to hinge on a femme fatale for whom several men flip their lids it was deeply unsexy, even asexual, as if sexiness was something the author had only ever encountered in books and didn’t really believe in.
One example of clumsy writing, and I know it’s not fair to judge a book from a single sentence but this was so jarring and poorly edited that it stayed with me. “We traced our steps to the car.” It doesn’t mean anything. You don’t “trace your steps.” You “retrace your steps” when you want to find the same way back you took. You certainly don’t use it to leave your apartment and go to the car. It’s just silly high-school writing that an editor should have ironed out. The whole book has stuff like this. Weak writing propping up a genuinely daft plot. Really disappointing.
September 27, 2017
Wow! I just finished "Follow Her Home" by Steph Cha and loved it. I read half of it at one sitting. Amateur sleuth Juniper Song (a 20-something Los Angeles Korean-American at loose ends after college) is such a real, believable character, and her past family trauma makes her insane determination to confront convoluted evil understandable. Song is fixated on Philip Marlowe and uses his methods as a template in her sleuthing.
I enjoyed all the Marlow references; now I want to reread "The Big Sleep" and Raymond Chandler's other books. Excellent writing and description, great sense of place. There are many clever turns of phrase in this book that add, rather than detract, from the story. I can't wait to read Cha's second book with Song, "Beware, Beware."
I enjoyed all the Marlow references; now I want to reread "The Big Sleep" and Raymond Chandler's other books. Excellent writing and description, great sense of place. There are many clever turns of phrase in this book that add, rather than detract, from the story. I can't wait to read Cha's second book with Song, "Beware, Beware."
November 26, 2019
GodDAMN I'm glad I read this book after I finished mine or else I would've been so intimidated, I wouldn't have even tried to write one. Pitch perfect LA noir. Bruising, heartbreaking plot, unrelenting. A pace that caused papercuts but such beautiful language that I didn't want to miss a word. Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.
Read
January 27, 2022Aaaahh I'm not going to rate this one because I don't want to be mean... five stars for the effort? 😅
The writing is gorgeous and Cha is clearly very talented, but the novel itself should've gone under the knife of a meaner editor to trim down the fat and tighten up the plot. There were a handful of misplaced words that felt jarring ("traced our steps" instead of "retraced our steps," for example -- did you actually get out some chalk and draw around your own feet?), but I'd be willing to give those a pass because they could be stylistic decisions. I certainly don't nitpick hardboiled detectives over their internal monologue's use of "ain't" and "could of," because that's the character speaking, hey!
But then there were the plot holes. The plot itself had a lot of promise, but came across like Cha was trying too hard to keep secrets from the audience to increase the air of mystery and subsequently forgot to include all the relevant information in the actual book. This is, again, something that a competent editor (fresh pair of eyes!) could have fixed, pointing out where plot threads don't make sense. It's tricky -- I understand, believe me! Especially when you, the author, have every detail in your head... it's difficult to make sure all the important stuff is actually put into the book, and at the right time, and in the right way.
Another issue in a similar vein is the POV changes. Obviously this is just my opinion, but I think one of the signs of a good noir mystery is staying inside the detective's head, watching them as they slowly (or quickly) unravel the case, putting all the pieces together... and switching the POV completely breaks that flow. It threw me out of the story every time, which was a shame, because I really liked Juniper Song's internal monologue -- she was snappy, self-aware, and a real Jessica Jones-type sleuth (i.e., not at all qualified but still awesome).
It's also my belief that no author who rates their own book five stars has written a five-star book. I'd love to be proven wrong, but unfortunately, Cha did not.
The writing is gorgeous and Cha is clearly very talented, but the novel itself should've gone under the knife of a meaner editor to trim down the fat and tighten up the plot. There were a handful of misplaced words that felt jarring ("traced our steps" instead of "retraced our steps," for example -- did you actually get out some chalk and draw around your own feet?), but I'd be willing to give those a pass because they could be stylistic decisions. I certainly don't nitpick hardboiled detectives over their internal monologue's use of "ain't" and "could of," because that's the character speaking, hey!
But then there were the plot holes. The plot itself had a lot of promise, but came across like Cha was trying too hard to keep secrets from the audience to increase the air of mystery and subsequently forgot to include all the relevant information in the actual book. This is, again, something that a competent editor (fresh pair of eyes!) could have fixed, pointing out where plot threads don't make sense. It's tricky -- I understand, believe me! Especially when you, the author, have every detail in your head... it's difficult to make sure all the important stuff is actually put into the book, and at the right time, and in the right way.
Another issue in a similar vein is the POV changes. Obviously this is just my opinion, but I think one of the signs of a good noir mystery is staying inside the detective's head, watching them as they slowly (or quickly) unravel the case, putting all the pieces together... and switching the POV completely breaks that flow. It threw me out of the story every time, which was a shame, because I really liked Juniper Song's internal monologue -- she was snappy, self-aware, and a real Jessica Jones-type sleuth (i.e., not at all qualified but still awesome).
It's also my belief that no author who rates their own book five stars has written a five-star book. I'd love to be proven wrong, but unfortunately, Cha did not.
January 16, 2013
This is the debut novel by Steph Cha featuring amateur sleuth Juniper Song. Song is unable to turn down a request from her best friend Luke to investigate whether or not his father has been having an affair on a young, very attractive woman from his firm. Having been a fan of crime mysteries and Philip Marlowe, she's more than happy to put all that she's learned into action. She just wasn't anticipating the action she'd get or how it makes her handle issues with her own past.
Steph Cha did a great job of making me care about where the story was going by having such a relatable main character. I can see Song having a series where we can watch her grow as a detective or in her personal life. She has some issues that after having read this book, I would love to see worked out.
My favorite part of the novel are hearing the witty or sarcastic things the narrator (Song) is saying or thinking. The characters in the story were all physically described well. I understand that with this novel being told in the first person, we can only know what Song knows, I just wish the peripheral characters and their personalities were described as well as their physical descriptions were. It would have helped me to care more for them.
I appreciated Song being Korean. I loved learning about the culture and urge Cha to give us more of her in the next book. Overall, I was impressed with this debut novel. It held my attention and never got boring. It's a light-hearted read that I would recommend for all you amateur sleuths out there.
Steph Cha did a great job of making me care about where the story was going by having such a relatable main character. I can see Song having a series where we can watch her grow as a detective or in her personal life. She has some issues that after having read this book, I would love to see worked out.
My favorite part of the novel are hearing the witty or sarcastic things the narrator (Song) is saying or thinking. The characters in the story were all physically described well. I understand that with this novel being told in the first person, we can only know what Song knows, I just wish the peripheral characters and their personalities were described as well as their physical descriptions were. It would have helped me to care more for them.
I appreciated Song being Korean. I loved learning about the culture and urge Cha to give us more of her in the next book. Overall, I was impressed with this debut novel. It held my attention and never got boring. It's a light-hearted read that I would recommend for all you amateur sleuths out there.
September 26, 2025
This didn't really work for me on a few levels.
- I didn't really understand the... crime? problem? The main thing that this "investigator" was supposed to be investigating seemed to be a complete non-issue that people were treating as though it was the crime of the century. Assaulting people over. Killing people over.
Don't get me wrong. I get that it would be embarrassing, potentially professionally damaging even. It's creepy and kinda cringe... But illegal? It was not. A crime? Nope.
Maybe I missed something, some blink-and-you-miss-it critical component that made what was essentially a fetish into something else... but I doubt it.
There was an element of parental coercive control/abuse, and definitely some shady business going on... but that was secondary to what Juniper Song was asked to look into, and was not being done by the person she was investigating, but rather an associate. There was also some assault/murder, but again, not the guy being investigated.
So... yeah. I failed to find much point to this. As a sort of homage to hardboiled noir crime thrillers... it tried, but ultimately failed.
- Speaking of homage, I failed to connect to the main character at all. Juniper really didn't do anything at all for me, and I was *THISFREAKINGCLOSE* to DNF'ing this on the very first page when she was describing her party outfit.
I get that she is obsessed with Raymond Chandler's hero, Philip Marlowe, but it was just... a bit much.
My favorite parts of the book, and of her characterization, were when she was flashbacking to her younger sister's highschool years, and the situation she found herself in regarding the relationship she found her sister in, and how it (eventually) related (in a kind of way) to the current investigation she was working on. But, of course, in all the ways that matter, the cases were nothing alike.
- The resolution. That sound you hear is the resolution flying in from far, far left field. It made no sense. None. Why would any of the people who did any of the things they did, DO THOSE THINGS? In THIS situation - WHICH I AGAIN REITERATE - was NOT illegal to begin with??
To cover up the non-crime, they committed several murders. It was like stubbing your toe and treating it by amputating both damn legs. WHY?? Completely unnecessary and overkill (literally) and just absolutely bizarre.
This was just a really odd experience for me. I love thrillers, and though I haven't read Chandler yet, I have read a decent portion of noir, hardboiled detective novels, and this just didn't really live up to them or work for me. It was like it didn't really know what it wanted to be, or what story it wanted to tell.
- I didn't really understand the... crime? problem? The main thing that this "investigator" was supposed to be investigating seemed to be a complete non-issue that people were treating as though it was the crime of the century. Assaulting people over. Killing people over.
Don't get me wrong. I get that it would be embarrassing, potentially professionally damaging even. It's creepy and kinda cringe... But illegal? It was not. A crime? Nope.
Maybe I missed something, some blink-and-you-miss-it critical component that made what was essentially a fetish into something else... but I doubt it.
There was an element of parental coercive control/abuse, and definitely some shady business going on... but that was secondary to what Juniper Song was asked to look into, and was not being done by the person she was investigating, but rather an associate. There was also some assault/murder, but again, not the guy being investigated.
So... yeah. I failed to find much point to this. As a sort of homage to hardboiled noir crime thrillers... it tried, but ultimately failed.
- Speaking of homage, I failed to connect to the main character at all. Juniper really didn't do anything at all for me, and I was *THISFREAKINGCLOSE* to DNF'ing this on the very first page when she was describing her party outfit.
"I was wearing a slinky black dress, black patent leather platform pumps, silver cascade earrings, and a black lambskin clutch. I was everything a half-employed twentysomething should be on the sober end of a Friday night. I was calling on an open bar at Luke's new apartment, ready to spend a little time and respectability on a blurry and colorful evening."EWW, NO THANK YOU. I don't even know you, and yet here you are, SECOND SENTENCE IN, objectifying yourself as much as any noir vixen written by a man. Gross.
I get that she is obsessed with Raymond Chandler's hero, Philip Marlowe, but it was just... a bit much.
My favorite parts of the book, and of her characterization, were when she was flashbacking to her younger sister's highschool years, and the situation she found herself in regarding the relationship she found her sister in, and how it (eventually) related (in a kind of way) to the current investigation she was working on. But, of course, in all the ways that matter, the cases were nothing alike.
- The resolution. That sound you hear is the resolution flying in from far, far left field. It made no sense. None. Why would any of the people who did any of the things they did, DO THOSE THINGS? In THIS situation - WHICH I AGAIN REITERATE - was NOT illegal to begin with??
To cover up the non-crime, they committed several murders. It was like stubbing your toe and treating it by amputating both damn legs. WHY?? Completely unnecessary and overkill (literally) and just absolutely bizarre.
This was just a really odd experience for me. I love thrillers, and though I haven't read Chandler yet, I have read a decent portion of noir, hardboiled detective novels, and this just didn't really live up to them or work for me. It was like it didn't really know what it wanted to be, or what story it wanted to tell.
April 5, 2024
That was dumb.
January 6, 2013
Follow Her Home by Steph Cha
*Made possible by Netgalley! Thank you very much!
Juniper Song loves the fictional stories of hardboiled noir detective Philip Marlowe, and while not a detective herself, she fancies herself capable of solving a mystery or two. Her friend Luke gives her an investigation-he believes that his father is having an affair-and she applies herself dutifully. Until she is hit on the head during the investigation and she finds the dead body of a stranger in her car. She becomes entangled in the dirty world of wealthy LA businessmen, and everyone she cares about is now in danger too.
Song
It took me a while to understand Song, and therefore it took me a while to warm to the book as a whole. When the book finally began to reveal her to me, I couldn’t put the book down. Song has her own past full of hurt and broken relationships. I appreciated that she comes to recognize how dangerous being a detective is, especially when she herself isn’t a detective, but a lover of fiction. She isn’t exactly as hardboiled as she thinks she is.
Race
Song is Korean, and I actually liked how Cha used the theme of race fetishism in the novel. As Song is Korean, she has an understandable reaction to it, and I also appreciated that her sister, Iris, (seems to have) had a different reaction to it. So does the Red Palace and everyone involved with it. Without spoiling it for those who have not read it, I thought the author used the theme well.
Mystery
This is obviously a mystery story, and I was surprised at most of the twists the story threw at me. Admittedly, I usually never figure out everything before the end anyway, unless it is YA fiction. This isn’t, so while I was pretty sure one character is obviously evil, I had to wait for confirmation, and it’s not like this fact is the end-all to every facet of the book.
Family
The theme of family is woven throughout the novel so well it was not until I was done that I realized that basically everything revolves around family. Luke and his father, Diego and his wife, Song and her mother and sister, Lori and her mother, plus a few others. A whole paper on family dynamics and the psychology behind it can be written using this book. Family can be a powerful motivator, and I think the author used it well.
Gripes
For a while, I just didn’t care. I was more interested in her sister’s story that is told in flashbacks. Song solved the mystery of her sister’s depression with her investigative skills and you get the whole story by the end of the novel. Because she is much more personally linked to her sister than her friend’s father and his secretary, you discover more of Song through the flashbacks than the main story. This, to me, is a huge failing. This is mostly because in the beginning of the book, nothing is done to let me know who Song is as a person and why I should care about her. She goes to a party and describes everything and everyone there, but not herself. She’s just there, kind of interacting, talking to Luke. I’m reading, going, so what? Who is this person and why should I care if something bad happens to her? It took me forever to care about her. As I said, it is not until we hear about her sister that I actually got a sense of who she is. The flashbacks do give us a deep understanding of who she is in the present, but if you cut them, there just isn’t a lot to indicate what kind of person she is. Also, it took me a long time to really get into the book, and I suspect it is because I had no connection to the protagonist for a very long time. Once I began to care, the book actually became so interesting I couldn’t stop reading it.
Verdict
If you like mysteries set in contemporary settings, I recommend this, but only with the warning that I found it boring until almost a third of the way through, maybe more. When the protagonist begins to reveal herself to the reader, the stakes become higher because at that point I actually cared about the reader. This would probably be good material for a mystery book club, as they can decide how it ranks in the world of the mystery genre. For me, I enjoyed the mystery and the twists it threw at me.
*Made possible by Netgalley! Thank you very much!
Juniper Song loves the fictional stories of hardboiled noir detective Philip Marlowe, and while not a detective herself, she fancies herself capable of solving a mystery or two. Her friend Luke gives her an investigation-he believes that his father is having an affair-and she applies herself dutifully. Until she is hit on the head during the investigation and she finds the dead body of a stranger in her car. She becomes entangled in the dirty world of wealthy LA businessmen, and everyone she cares about is now in danger too.
Song
It took me a while to understand Song, and therefore it took me a while to warm to the book as a whole. When the book finally began to reveal her to me, I couldn’t put the book down. Song has her own past full of hurt and broken relationships. I appreciated that she comes to recognize how dangerous being a detective is, especially when she herself isn’t a detective, but a lover of fiction. She isn’t exactly as hardboiled as she thinks she is.
Race
Song is Korean, and I actually liked how Cha used the theme of race fetishism in the novel. As Song is Korean, she has an understandable reaction to it, and I also appreciated that her sister, Iris, (seems to have) had a different reaction to it. So does the Red Palace and everyone involved with it. Without spoiling it for those who have not read it, I thought the author used the theme well.
Mystery
This is obviously a mystery story, and I was surprised at most of the twists the story threw at me. Admittedly, I usually never figure out everything before the end anyway, unless it is YA fiction. This isn’t, so while I was pretty sure one character is obviously evil, I had to wait for confirmation, and it’s not like this fact is the end-all to every facet of the book.
Family
The theme of family is woven throughout the novel so well it was not until I was done that I realized that basically everything revolves around family. Luke and his father, Diego and his wife, Song and her mother and sister, Lori and her mother, plus a few others. A whole paper on family dynamics and the psychology behind it can be written using this book. Family can be a powerful motivator, and I think the author used it well.
Gripes
For a while, I just didn’t care. I was more interested in her sister’s story that is told in flashbacks. Song solved the mystery of her sister’s depression with her investigative skills and you get the whole story by the end of the novel. Because she is much more personally linked to her sister than her friend’s father and his secretary, you discover more of Song through the flashbacks than the main story. This, to me, is a huge failing. This is mostly because in the beginning of the book, nothing is done to let me know who Song is as a person and why I should care about her. She goes to a party and describes everything and everyone there, but not herself. She’s just there, kind of interacting, talking to Luke. I’m reading, going, so what? Who is this person and why should I care if something bad happens to her? It took me forever to care about her. As I said, it is not until we hear about her sister that I actually got a sense of who she is. The flashbacks do give us a deep understanding of who she is in the present, but if you cut them, there just isn’t a lot to indicate what kind of person she is. Also, it took me a long time to really get into the book, and I suspect it is because I had no connection to the protagonist for a very long time. Once I began to care, the book actually became so interesting I couldn’t stop reading it.
Verdict
If you like mysteries set in contemporary settings, I recommend this, but only with the warning that I found it boring until almost a third of the way through, maybe more. When the protagonist begins to reveal herself to the reader, the stakes become higher because at that point I actually cared about the reader. This would probably be good material for a mystery book club, as they can decide how it ranks in the world of the mystery genre. For me, I enjoyed the mystery and the twists it threw at me.
February 25, 2019
This week I finished 'Follow her Home' by Steph Cha.
It's a really good book, kind of a homage to Chandler. Much of it based in a building called The Marlowe. The main character is Juniper Song an American of South Korean descent, and a Marlowe fan to boot. Asked to check on her friend's dad, to see if he is having an affair.
But in true Marlowe style one case leads to complications and multiple murders. Cha does a great job of controlling the plot and it was fun to read, Chandlerian but with enough modern stuff to make it seem real. It was easy to follow, but still complex enough to be interesting.
In the novel, Song tells us directly how she dislikes the femme fatale as a convention of Hardboiled Crime. I think it's interesting that in the novel, Luke fulfils a lot of the criteria of the Femme Fatale, with the exception of the sexualisation - which I guess for whatever reason would feel weird from a female protagonist - though I think it would be odd from a male protagonist too.
One of the things that I loved about this book was the way that gender was handled. It wasn't as simple as a role reversal, and Song isn't a straight male Marlowe, and the men in the novel, while often privileged by their social status, are made weak and vulnerable by their desire to dominate - at least that's what I think right now.
More specifically, Cha considers South Korean stereotypes in terms of gender and the male gaze. In short there's a lot in this seemingly straightforward genre novel than you might expect.
It's a really good book, kind of a homage to Chandler. Much of it based in a building called The Marlowe. The main character is Juniper Song an American of South Korean descent, and a Marlowe fan to boot. Asked to check on her friend's dad, to see if he is having an affair.
But in true Marlowe style one case leads to complications and multiple murders. Cha does a great job of controlling the plot and it was fun to read, Chandlerian but with enough modern stuff to make it seem real. It was easy to follow, but still complex enough to be interesting.
In the novel, Song tells us directly how she dislikes the femme fatale as a convention of Hardboiled Crime. I think it's interesting that in the novel, Luke fulfils a lot of the criteria of the Femme Fatale, with the exception of the sexualisation - which I guess for whatever reason would feel weird from a female protagonist - though I think it would be odd from a male protagonist too.
One of the things that I loved about this book was the way that gender was handled. It wasn't as simple as a role reversal, and Song isn't a straight male Marlowe, and the men in the novel, while often privileged by their social status, are made weak and vulnerable by their desire to dominate - at least that's what I think right now.
More specifically, Cha considers South Korean stereotypes in terms of gender and the male gaze. In short there's a lot in this seemingly straightforward genre novel than you might expect.
December 31, 2020
Nicely done private eye detective story, one set in modern day (2013) Los Angeles but with lots of homage to 1930s and 1940s L.A. (the main character, Juniper Song, a twentysomething Korean-American woman, is a huge fan of Raymond Chandler’s famed fictional detective Philip Marlowe and occasionally compares what is going on in the novel to the experiences of that detective, most especially Marlowe’s experiences in _The Big Sleep_, whether it is specific event or general tropes, such as how “Marlowe always managed to describe every detail of a room before coolly settling his writer’s eye” on the body at the center of a room).
Though the novel seems to start off with low stakes – Juniper Song is asked by her friend Luke to see whether or not his father, William C. Cook, a founding partner in the law firm Stokel, Levinson, & Cook, is cheating, sleeping with Lori, a woman barely a legal adult (“a hot little Asian employee under half his age”) – the novel soon becomes one of high stakes involving murder, hidden agendas, and more, stakes that threaten not only Song’s life but the lives of her friends as well as reopen barely healed emotional wounds from Song’s past.
The good, I liked the layering of Song’s current case with a series of flashbacks showing something that happened, a terrible tragedy, with Song’s sister Iris, with while both cases being quite different, also shared some disturbing similarities. This alternating between the past tragedy with Iris and Song’s current predicaments served to both deepen the character of Song but also showed why in particular that Song gets so deeply involved in this current case, that is more than just a Marlowesque sense of not being able to quit a case until the detective was done with it (despite what the client wanted) but that it really resonated with Song’s lived experiences, that in part Song is dedicated to the case due to unresolved trauma with what happened to her sister.
I also liked the exploration of not only through Song’s past but with Song’s current case the white American male fetishization of Asian women (among some men), an uncomfortable topic to explore as it addresses issues of not only pornography but also racism and sexism. This wasn’t done in any sort of preachy way but was integral to the plot, a good exploration of a concept done in a show not tell fashion, to me succeeding in walking the line between endorsing white men showing an interest in Asian women while condemning exoticizing them or seeing them as fantasy versions from anime or other fiction, of seeing them not as real people but as fantasy girls who come from some generic fantasy Asian background, more a blank slate to project fantasies on than any appreciation for the women’s actual culture (with for example the fetishist often confusing elements of Korean and Japanese culture).
I also liked how the agency of the women wasn’t just shoved aside, that the women could be very willing participants in such relationships, even volunteering things that please their fetishist significant other, meaning that the issue of harm could be a complex one to discuss, though in both cases in the book there were other factors at work, such as enormous societal power differentials.
I don’t know if it was the intent of the author, but this exploration of that fetishization (remembering pornography was part of the heart of the evil in _The Big Sleep_ so there is another parallel there with Raymond Chandler) seemed to underline Song’s own near fetishization of Philip Marlowe (perhaps fetishization is the wrong word, as Song’s fascination with Marlowe wasn’t at all sexual; perhaps idolization?):
“…I adopted Marlowe. He was quick-witted and masculine, fascinating and foreign, and I took to him right away…I found more than fantasy in the world of noir, and I sank into the scorching bleakness with self-punishing relish.”
While Song explored the unrealistic and ultimately harmful views of two different white men when it came to viewing young Asian women in a fetishized way, Song herself was finding out that real life wasn’t like a Raymond Chandler mystery (even accounting for differences in era whether due to technology or due to culture), that uncovering a mystery in real life, dealing with threats to friends, to oneself, to experiencing real violence is quite a bit different, that real people get hurt, lives gets ruined, and death is quite messy, that some of the tropes of noir fiction – a calm cool detachment, a calmness in the face of danger – are really, really hard to manage in real life. She “couldn’t take violence and death with his [Marlowe’s] even, evaluative stance, and danger did what danger does – it scared me,” and that while “Marlowe never spoke of family, or close relationships…[t]here were few threats that could stop him cold” Song very much did have close relationships and family and they could be threatened.
The bad? Sometimes pacing wasn’t as good as it could be. The book never dragged, but at times it didn’t seem to flow as nicely as I would have liked. While I liked the support of the current storyline with that of Song’s sister in the past, perhaps they could have been reworked a bit to build tension, that while what happened with Song’s sister was vital to the story and chilling, it didn’t build a sense of foreboding that would have quickened the pace, that it was sad but lacked a real dramatic climax.
Sometimes the descriptions could be a bit odd to the eye:
“She shut her phone with a gentle click like she was turning it off in a movie theater.”
“The sky was the color of miracles.”
“It’s like swimming down a jar of mayonnaise…”
I get there was an attempt made to have the feel of Chandlerisms, his use of similes and metaphors, and a number of times the author succeeded, but at other times it came off really awkward and felt too self-conscious. If they were meant to underline the amateur status of Song, of how real-life doesn’t mirror a Raymond Chandler story, I get that, but they felt like the author has room to mature. Some just weren’t good.
I think this author has room to improve but I liked what I have seen so far and would definitely read more. Now that Song has seen some things in this story, I do wonder what she will be like in the next book; will she still fall back on Chandler as much or will she forge her own path? Her life is completely different at the end of the book and I also wonder what that means for her as well.
Though the novel seems to start off with low stakes – Juniper Song is asked by her friend Luke to see whether or not his father, William C. Cook, a founding partner in the law firm Stokel, Levinson, & Cook, is cheating, sleeping with Lori, a woman barely a legal adult (“a hot little Asian employee under half his age”) – the novel soon becomes one of high stakes involving murder, hidden agendas, and more, stakes that threaten not only Song’s life but the lives of her friends as well as reopen barely healed emotional wounds from Song’s past.
The good, I liked the layering of Song’s current case with a series of flashbacks showing something that happened, a terrible tragedy, with Song’s sister Iris, with while both cases being quite different, also shared some disturbing similarities. This alternating between the past tragedy with Iris and Song’s current predicaments served to both deepen the character of Song but also showed why in particular that Song gets so deeply involved in this current case, that is more than just a Marlowesque sense of not being able to quit a case until the detective was done with it (despite what the client wanted) but that it really resonated with Song’s lived experiences, that in part Song is dedicated to the case due to unresolved trauma with what happened to her sister.
I also liked the exploration of not only through Song’s past but with Song’s current case the white American male fetishization of Asian women (among some men), an uncomfortable topic to explore as it addresses issues of not only pornography but also racism and sexism. This wasn’t done in any sort of preachy way but was integral to the plot, a good exploration of a concept done in a show not tell fashion, to me succeeding in walking the line between endorsing white men showing an interest in Asian women while condemning exoticizing them or seeing them as fantasy versions from anime or other fiction, of seeing them not as real people but as fantasy girls who come from some generic fantasy Asian background, more a blank slate to project fantasies on than any appreciation for the women’s actual culture (with for example the fetishist often confusing elements of Korean and Japanese culture).
I also liked how the agency of the women wasn’t just shoved aside, that the women could be very willing participants in such relationships, even volunteering things that please their fetishist significant other, meaning that the issue of harm could be a complex one to discuss, though in both cases in the book there were other factors at work, such as enormous societal power differentials.
I don’t know if it was the intent of the author, but this exploration of that fetishization (remembering pornography was part of the heart of the evil in _The Big Sleep_ so there is another parallel there with Raymond Chandler) seemed to underline Song’s own near fetishization of Philip Marlowe (perhaps fetishization is the wrong word, as Song’s fascination with Marlowe wasn’t at all sexual; perhaps idolization?):
“…I adopted Marlowe. He was quick-witted and masculine, fascinating and foreign, and I took to him right away…I found more than fantasy in the world of noir, and I sank into the scorching bleakness with self-punishing relish.”
While Song explored the unrealistic and ultimately harmful views of two different white men when it came to viewing young Asian women in a fetishized way, Song herself was finding out that real life wasn’t like a Raymond Chandler mystery (even accounting for differences in era whether due to technology or due to culture), that uncovering a mystery in real life, dealing with threats to friends, to oneself, to experiencing real violence is quite a bit different, that real people get hurt, lives gets ruined, and death is quite messy, that some of the tropes of noir fiction – a calm cool detachment, a calmness in the face of danger – are really, really hard to manage in real life. She “couldn’t take violence and death with his [Marlowe’s] even, evaluative stance, and danger did what danger does – it scared me,” and that while “Marlowe never spoke of family, or close relationships…[t]here were few threats that could stop him cold” Song very much did have close relationships and family and they could be threatened.
The bad? Sometimes pacing wasn’t as good as it could be. The book never dragged, but at times it didn’t seem to flow as nicely as I would have liked. While I liked the support of the current storyline with that of Song’s sister in the past, perhaps they could have been reworked a bit to build tension, that while what happened with Song’s sister was vital to the story and chilling, it didn’t build a sense of foreboding that would have quickened the pace, that it was sad but lacked a real dramatic climax.
Sometimes the descriptions could be a bit odd to the eye:
“She shut her phone with a gentle click like she was turning it off in a movie theater.”
“The sky was the color of miracles.”
“It’s like swimming down a jar of mayonnaise…”
I get there was an attempt made to have the feel of Chandlerisms, his use of similes and metaphors, and a number of times the author succeeded, but at other times it came off really awkward and felt too self-conscious. If they were meant to underline the amateur status of Song, of how real-life doesn’t mirror a Raymond Chandler story, I get that, but they felt like the author has room to mature. Some just weren’t good.
I think this author has room to improve but I liked what I have seen so far and would definitely read more. Now that Song has seen some things in this story, I do wonder what she will be like in the next book; will she still fall back on Chandler as much or will she forge her own path? Her life is completely different at the end of the book and I also wonder what that means for her as well.
February 14, 2015
Sharp prose, punchy dialog, and unexpected/expected violence, this has all the hallmarks of L.A. noir. Really enjoyed the L.A. settings: Koreatown, Park LaBrea, etc. I have to say I wish I hadn't read Beware Beware, the second book in the Juniper Song series, first because that spoiled some of the fun. Also, in Beware Beware Song's a detective working for an actual agency. Here the mystery unfolds among Song's circle of friends. So while Song channels Marlowe as a kind of spirit guide to work her way out of the trouble she stumbles into, the dynamic changes when all of the characters are friends, former colleagues, and their family members. That said, I can't wait to read the third installment, Dead Soon Enough coming in August.
February 11, 2013
I won this book via a goodreads giveaway. Juniper Song, who likes noir fiction characters like Philip Marlowe, is asked to follow her friend's father to see if he is cheating. As a result, Song gets in more trouble than she bargained for. This book has a noir feeling which like I said, the main character favors. It is two short stories woven into one. The case she is working on resembles an important event in her past. The story has plenty of twists and turns and keeps you guessing where it is going. My only complaint is I wish there were a bigger buildup to these revelations. A nice debut novel from the author.
September 3, 2014
Enjoyable. Both melancholy and tense. It takes place all in one weekend, all in my part of town, or areas I know well. That makes it even more accessible. I wonder how it reads to someone who doesn't know Los Angeles at all. The city and its street corners play a big part in this Noir novel.
I look forward to reading more in the Juniper Song series. She cracks her knuckles and drives a stick-shift. (Next one: Beware Beware: A Juniper Song Mystery)
3.8 stars
I look forward to reading more in the Juniper Song series. She cracks her knuckles and drives a stick-shift. (Next one: Beware Beware: A Juniper Song Mystery)
3.8 stars
August 31, 2022
I really hate to give a book 1 star. Especially when the author’s most recent novel is one of the best books I’ve read all year.
So just do me a favor and skip this one and go find yourself a copy of Your House Will Pay. I’ll chalk this one up to an author learning her craft and thank my lucky literary stars that she stuck with it and found her voice.
So just do me a favor and skip this one and go find yourself a copy of Your House Will Pay. I’ll chalk this one up to an author learning her craft and thank my lucky literary stars that she stuck with it and found her voice.
July 15, 2018
A solid modern noir with a specific point of view that sets it apart. Juniper Song is a twenty-six-year-old woman from a Korean American family, living in LA, holding tightly to her good friends from college and nursing her painful family history. She has a deep love of Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe, name-checking the detective often and considered how he would respond to the increasingly noir-ish events that Song finds herself involved in, starting with her best friend asking her to keep an eye on a “femme fatale” who might be having an affair with his father. I have to admit that after Song found the body in her trunk (probably not a spoiler since it happens at the beginning of the book, just as events were getting going) I thought “this is ridiculous. It makes no sense.” And I put the book down. But I made myself keep reading, giving the author and the story the benefit of the doubt. And it didn’t make sense, but that was deliberate. Song has gotten sucked into a noir world without meaning, where charming psychopaths kill without calculation or regard for consequences, which ends up being more frightening than an orderly mystery where you solve the puzzle clue by clue. Follow Her Home is about people being messy and Song trying and failing to protect the people she loves. It’s heartbreaking but Song’s determination and ultimate resilience in the face of our chaotic world made this really work for me. As much as I enjoy a good mystery where the protagonist restores order to the world by the end, a dark noir fits how the world feels to me right now. I’m comforted not by the meaning and sense of the resolution of the mystery, but by Song’s strength and her refusal to abandon people. Lessons to live by today. Oh, and Song better have called her mother right after this story ended!
November 14, 2020
This has a great plot, but uses a device that I don't care for - shifting POV - even in the same chapter. In addition, there are flashbacks to an earlier investigation by Song.
This involves characters from the 1 percent of the rich in Los Angeles. They are not hard working and seem very frivolous at times. They portray risky behaviors and the result is great personal danger to themselves and others.
Juniper Song is Korean American and her college buddy asks her to investigate his father's relationship with a co-worker. Lori.
Song loves the detective series Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler. This was the part of the novel I liked best. Her reflections on "what would Marlowe do" were as amusing as "what wouldn't Marlowe do"
I have hopes that the rest of the series is as entertaining.
I borrowed a copy from the public library.
This involves characters from the 1 percent of the rich in Los Angeles. They are not hard working and seem very frivolous at times. They portray risky behaviors and the result is great personal danger to themselves and others.
Juniper Song is Korean American and her college buddy asks her to investigate his father's relationship with a co-worker. Lori.
Song loves the detective series Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler. This was the part of the novel I liked best. Her reflections on "what would Marlowe do" were as amusing as "what wouldn't Marlowe do"
I have hopes that the rest of the series is as entertaining.
I borrowed a copy from the public library.
February 23, 2021
Steph Cha's "Your House Will Pay" was probably my favorite book that I read during 2020. Cha's writing style is so compelling that even ordinary passages where little is happening can seem gripping. With that in mind, I was eager to read "Follow Her Home," the first of her Juniper Song trilogy.
Written in open homage to hard-boiled detective fiction in general and Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep" in particular, "Follow Her Home" introduces the most original shamus since Lebowski. Juniper Song is a Yale grad living directionless in Los Angeles and carrying her past as a heavy burden. When a friend asks her to find out if his dad is cheating on his mom with a girl in her early twenties, Juniper is drawn into a tangled web of sordid mystery from which she cannot easily escape.
"Follow Her Home" has so many great aspects to recommend it. It is super fun to read scenes set in L.A. locations I've visited. The narrator's perspective as a Korean-American woman was also interesting and brought something new to the hard-boiled genre.
Written in open homage to hard-boiled detective fiction in general and Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep" in particular, "Follow Her Home" introduces the most original shamus since Lebowski. Juniper Song is a Yale grad living directionless in Los Angeles and carrying her past as a heavy burden. When a friend asks her to find out if his dad is cheating on his mom with a girl in her early twenties, Juniper is drawn into a tangled web of sordid mystery from which she cannot easily escape.
"Follow Her Home" has so many great aspects to recommend it. It is super fun to read scenes set in L.A. locations I've visited. The narrator's perspective as a Korean-American woman was also interesting and brought something new to the hard-boiled genre.
February 25, 2021
A good enough read albeit not terribly original, I enjoyed it enough to consider getting the next in the Juniper Song series at some point. Decent plot, but the parallel 2nd plot from Song's past doesn't really work well. Overall, nothing to get terribly excited about, and esp lacking the great characters that make me return time and time again to the likes of George P Pelecanos, Walter Mosely and of course Chandler the great master himself. On whose subject, she deals with the inevitable Marlowe spectre that hovers over every noir-ish LA-based crime novel by having the protagonist be a huge Marlowe fan. This works well.
October 15, 2022
This was a small twist on the LA private eye noir but still effective enough to make it fresh. Juniper Song is not even an actual PI, which is a sub-genre unto itself by now but it works here. This also renders an LA I know very well so I could relate to this more personally than most PI noirs. The stakes were low and realistic but I wish Song was on her own a little more. I felt like it was either Buddy Cop or Scooby Gang, which undercut her too much. Her backstory was very rich and tied into the present day plot well. On the whole, pretty light on its feet and fun.
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