Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

I think a lot of people read, or planned to read, The Ghost Bride for the Ghost Story prompt. Would anyone like to discuss it? I just finished it, and I have to say it was really not even close to what I was expecting. I enjoyed it, but I was so far off base as to what was going to happen, that I think I really set myself up for missing out.

I've just started listening to this book! I am planning on using it for the ghost story prompt, and I'm also using it for Malaysia in my countries of the world checklist. I figure it's the area that would eventually become Malaysia, so it counts. :) I don't have a lot of expectations thus far, but I'm excited to see how everything turns out!

I hope you like it, Christy!

I finished the ghost bride a little while ago! but i also did not expect the ending! at all. I really liked the idea of a bureaucratic afterlife filled with corruption though. some things don't change after death

I read this a few years ago, and I was REALLY disappointed. I don’t like to talk about it, because people seem to be enjoying it and I dont want to be the “wet blanket” that ruins everyone’s fun ;-)

I don’t remember the ending, but I noted it was “anticlimactic” in my review.

Nadine wrote: "I read this a few years ago, and I was REALLY disappointed. I don’t like to talk about it, because people seem to be enjoying it and I dont want to be the “wet blanket” that ruins everyone’s fun ;-..."

I have now finished it, and I was also disappointed! I still enjoyed myself listening to it, but so many of the major plot threads were resolved "off-screen", which is both anticlimactic and much less interesting. It also gave the sense at the end of the book that a bunch of random things were just happening rather than tying the whole thing into a cohesive whole. Overall, it could have used a firmer hand with the editing.

I read this for the ghost story prompt and also for because I loved this author’s latest book, “The Night Tiger”. So I was itching to return to Malaya folklore mixed in with the social commentary.

I think it started out very strong, the whole concept of being a ghost bride, especially since as a sheltered and penniless girl from a genteel family, she could live in luxury for the rest of her life as a ghost bride. And the parts about where the dead bridegroom begins to haunt her dreams were suspenseful and creepy.

But I think within the 3rd section, the book fell apart and the final part was completely unnecessary and bonkers. And it struck me as so convenient and ill conceived that Er Lang was constantly showing up to save our heroine. We don’t even know enough about Er Lang, ever.

I agree with some of you who are saying you thought it would go one way, but it went another. It started out very good, and made me think of the movie Spirited Away, and then it just took a weird turn. I thought it was too slow at times, and could have been much better than it turned out to be.