2019 Reading Challenge Reviews - Books 27 & 28

I'm participating in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge this year, and I love it. For more information on the challenge, check out my Overview post, or visit the Pop Sugar website.

Book 27: The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads, but it would have been 4.5 if there were half stars available.

The prompt I chose for this was "A book told from multiple points of view."

The Night Tiger takes place in 1930's Malaysia, and follows a young servant named Ren and a girl named Ji Lin who although start on very different paths find their lives intertwined. Ren's master's dying wish is for Ren to find his master's missing finger and return it to the grave before 49 days have passed. Ren believes that this is the only way his master will be able to rest in peace. Ji Lin is an apprentice dress-maker who dreams of being a doctor in a time when only men can be doctors. To help pay for her mother's debts, Ji Lin also secretly teaches dance on the side. It's at her dance job that she comes across a severed finger, and the wheels are set in motion to bring Ren and Ji Lin's stories together.

This book has so much to love; from the characters to the cultural elements to the plot to the twists and how it all comes together in the ending.

There were also elements of so many genres, and I loved that about this book. There was a little fantasy in the idea of the Night Tiger and the legends it originates from, a little historical fiction in the time setting, a little mystery in the search for the missing finger, and a little drama from both the plot and character development.

This book brought together how chance meetings and relationships can connect to form multiple stories for each person involved. It leads to questions of fate verses chance/coincidence, and makes you wonder if the characters would have developed into the people they are by the end of the novel if not for the other characters they met along the way.

Book 28: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

The prompt I chose for this was "A LitRPG Book."

Set in the future, Ready Player One, depicts a world that has fallen into poverty; a world where to escape reality people enter an immersive video game utopia called the OASIS. When the creator of the OASIS died, he set a series of tasks and puzzles for his players to solve that will lead one to winning the ultimate prize, the OASIS itself. Years after his death, the first puzzle is still unsolved, until teenager Wade Watts discovers it. Wade sets in motion a media frenzy and race to solve the remaining puzzles including not only other players, but a huge corporation as well. The race will test his relationships, knowledge of the game and creator, and become a battle for survival both in game and out.

This book resonated with my awkward teenage past self. It's 80's themes and references fill the pages and, being that teenage me was obsessed with all things 80's, I loved every second of it. I was an awesomely geeky teenager, and loved old school video games as well. If something like the OASIS had existed back then, I would have definitely signed up.

Usually, I like to read the book before I see the movie; however, that did not work out in this case. That said, although I think Steven Spielberg did an amazing job with interpreting the book for the big screen, I still loved the book more. The characters had some slight differences in the book compared to the movie, and in many cases I felt that those little things made them even more lovable in the book.

Overall, I thought this was a really fun book, and I highly recommend both the book and movie (especially if you love the 1980's).