Call number
Genres
Publication
New York : Ace, 2021.
Pages
370
Description
"A reluctant medium is about to discover the ties that bind can unleash a dangerous power . . . . When Jessamyn Teoh starts hearing a voice in her head, she chalks it up to stress. Closeted, broke and jobless, she's moving back to Malaysia with her parents - a country she last saw when she was a toddler. She soon learns the new voice isn't even hers, it's the ghost of her estranged grandmother. In life, Ah Ma was a spirit medium, avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a business magnate who has offended the god-and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it, whether Jess wants to or not. Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business, but dealing with her grandmother is just as complicated. Especially when Ah Ma tries to spy on her personal life, threatens to spill her secrets to her family and uses her body to commit felonies. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she'll also need to regain control of her body and destiny - or the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good"--… (more)
Awards
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Novel — 2022)
RUSA CODES Reading List (Shortlist — Fantasy — 2022)
The Kitschies (Finalist — 2021)
Ignyte Award (Shortlist — 2022)
Diverse Book Awards (Longlist — Adult — 2022)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2021-05-11
Physical description
370 p.; 22 cm
ISBN
9780425283431
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User reviews
LibraryThing member Zoes_Human
Jessamyn Teoh grew up a Malaysian immigrant in the United States and now, as an adult with a degree but no job, finds herself an immigrant in her country of birth when she returns with her parents in the aftermath of her father's illness and job loss. As her stress mounts from worry about her
A contemporary urban fantasy that starts out light but evolves into something more unsettling and complex. As I read, I experienced laughter, frustration, hope, fear, excitement, commiseration, horror, relief, and joy, and I leave it feeling as though Jess were my life-long friend.
CONTENT ADVISORY:scenes depicting intimate partner abuse, attempted rape, homophobia, and colorism
I received a complimentary advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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parents, living with extended family, and managing a long-distance relationship with her out girlfriend while being in the closet, she starts hearing her dead grandmother's voice in her head.A contemporary urban fantasy that starts out light but evolves into something more unsettling and complex. As I read, I experienced laughter, frustration, hope, fear, excitement, commiseration, horror, relief, and joy, and I leave it feeling as though Jess were my life-long friend.
CONTENT ADVISORY:
I received a complimentary advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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LibraryThing member MontzaleeW
Black Water Sister
by Zen Cho
Wow! This was written so wonderfully! Jess moves back to Malaysia with her parents after she grew up in America and graduated from college. Her girlfriend, which her parents doesn't know she has, plans to move there to work later.
Things get complicated right away. She
It's a wild ride through ghosts, gods, vengeful spirits, family secrets, corporate greed, mediums, and social norms.
It's got some brutal parts, funny parts, and educational parts! Black Water Sister is the name of a god that many fear with good reason. Jess learns this along the way.
by Zen Cho
Wow! This was written so wonderfully! Jess moves back to Malaysia with her parents after she grew up in America and graduated from college. Her girlfriend, which her parents doesn't know she has, plans to move there to work later.
Things get complicated right away. She
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starts hearing voices. She blames it on stress. The voice tells her it's her grandmother, her mom's mother. Her mom never speaks about her mom and says little about that side of the family. This grandmother also happened to die last year.It's a wild ride through ghosts, gods, vengeful spirits, family secrets, corporate greed, mediums, and social norms.
It's got some brutal parts, funny parts, and educational parts! Black Water Sister is the name of a god that many fear with good reason. Jess learns this along the way.
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LibraryThing member quondame
Unemployed recent Harvard graduate Jess hasn't come out to her parents as she returns with them to Penang where her father will work for his younger brother and she will, well what happens after she starts hearing her departed grandmother's voice and get embroiled with the local gods is the story.
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Displacement, family, local gods, old crimes mix inn a non-stop torrent as Jess struggles for herself among all the forces internal and external that form the current in which she is immersed. Show Less
LibraryThing member Shrike58
This is Ms. Cho's third novel and represents a very different flavor than the Regency-flavored fairy tales for adults that she has written previously. Cho has spoken before of writing stories as if what the average Malaysian thought about reality was true, that there were potentially hostile
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spirits that needed to be appeased, and appeasing said spirits is a major driving force of the plot. On the other hand, one has the circumstances our protagonist Jess finds herself in; a thoroughly Americanized young woman thrown back into Malaysia, and wondering what she is going to do with her life; particularly how she can explain to her parents about her real sexual orientation. From there, the feeling is equal parts gangster-family epic and suspense thriller, just crossing the line into horror; except that it's going to take transcending violence to find a solution to the conflicts of the novel. I thought this book was great and I can easily imagine it being on the World Fantasy short list for best novel. It also shows, that anytime Ms. Cho wants to tackle the literary market, that door is open for her. Show Less
LibraryThing member Anniik
TW/CW: Family death, abuse, sexual assault, violence
RATING: 3.5/5
REVIEW: Black Water Sister is the story of Jess, a young Chinese-American woman who moves back to Malaysia with her family. Soon after arriving, she starts hearing the voice of her grandmother, a supernatural experience that leads her
This is, overall, a good book. I enjoyed reading it. The writing was sound and the story mostly made sense. There were a few things I had questions about at the end, but not many.
There was a lot of fighting and violence, which isn’t my thing, and which I find very difficult to read in general, but overall it was a really interesting book with interesting characters that kept me entertained.
RATING: 3.5/5
REVIEW: Black Water Sister is the story of Jess, a young Chinese-American woman who moves back to Malaysia with her family. Soon after arriving, she starts hearing the voice of her grandmother, a supernatural experience that leads her
Show More
into a world of gods and spirits and the dangers that she hadn’t known existed.This is, overall, a good book. I enjoyed reading it. The writing was sound and the story mostly made sense. There were a few things I had questions about at the end, but not many.
There was a lot of fighting and violence, which isn’t my thing, and which I find very difficult to read in general, but overall it was a really interesting book with interesting characters that kept me entertained.
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LibraryThing member Othemts
Jessamyn Teoh, a recent college graduate who grew up in the United States after her family emigrated there from Malaysia during her early childhood, faces an uncertain future. She is moving back to Malaysia with her parents where she has to adjust to an unfamiliar culture, find work, and maintain a
Black Water Sister is a unique novel that blends elements of fantasy, mystery, and fish out of water story to tell a story of contemporary Malaysia. Facets of Malaysian culture such as tradition, religion, and family are woven into the narrative. Unfortunately for Jess (and others like her), homophobia is also a part of the Malaysian culture. It's an interesting and well-written story that I enjoyed.
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long-distance relationship with her girlfriend while hiding that she's lesbian from her parents. Things grow more complicated when Jess begins hearing the voice of her deceased grandmother Ah Ma. Soon Jess finds herself plunged into an adventure featuring a powerful real estate developer, gangsters, and gods. To put things right, and to find justice for Ah Ma, Jess must become a medium for a vengeful goddess known as Black Water Sister.Black Water Sister is a unique novel that blends elements of fantasy, mystery, and fish out of water story to tell a story of contemporary Malaysia. Facets of Malaysian culture such as tradition, religion, and family are woven into the narrative. Unfortunately for Jess (and others like her), homophobia is also a part of the Malaysian culture. It's an interesting and well-written story that I enjoyed.
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LibraryThing member xaverie
I really enjoyed this.
Jess was a great protagonist. While she was born in Malaysia to ethnic Chinese parents, they moved to America when she was young and she grew up there. The book starts a few months after Jess has graduated from Harvard and she's moving back to Penang with her parents after her
This is essential because Jess' as a character is stuck in-between everything: her and her parents are staying with relatives while they try to get back on their feet, she's a lesbian but deeply closeted (something that annoys her secret girlfriend to no end), she's stuck between countries and cultures, and finally it turns out that she's a medium and can see ghosts and gods.
Jess was a really fun character; compassionate, easy to relate to, quite funny. Her extended family are really well-characterized too. There's always a slight 'wackiness' with extended families staying together that the author captures well, like the way everybody talks (loudly) but nobody listens and the way they're always so nosy.
What I liked overall is that this book is about mothers and daughters, but more specifically the pains of misogyny. How one of the deepest connections between mother and daughter is the misogyny they've had to face. I really liked how Zen Cho wove the violence and pain directly into the fabric of the story, the lasting generational trauma of male violence against the main villain more than anything.
Jess was a great protagonist. While she was born in Malaysia to ethnic Chinese parents, they moved to America when she was young and she grew up there. The book starts a few months after Jess has graduated from Harvard and she's moving back to Penang with her parents after her
Show More
father's battle with cancer left them in financial ruin. This is essential because Jess' as a character is stuck in-between everything: her and her parents are staying with relatives while they try to get back on their feet, she's a lesbian but deeply closeted (something that annoys her secret girlfriend to no end), she's stuck between countries and cultures, and finally it turns out that she's a medium and can see ghosts and gods.
Jess was a really fun character; compassionate, easy to relate to, quite funny. Her extended family are really well-characterized too. There's always a slight 'wackiness' with extended families staying together that the author captures well, like the way everybody talks (loudly) but nobody listens and the way they're always so nosy.
What I liked overall is that this book is about mothers and daughters, but more specifically the pains of misogyny. How one of the deepest connections between mother and daughter is the misogyny they've had to face. I really liked how Zen Cho wove the violence and pain directly into the fabric of the story, the lasting generational trauma of male violence against the main villain more than anything.
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LibraryThing member lavaturtle
This book grabbed me from the first page, with the unique situation the protagonist finds herself in. I appreciated getting a glimpse of a city and culture I know basically nothing about. Jess and the various people haunting her are great characters, and I'm happy with the eventual ending.
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Definitely going to look for more books by this author! Show Less
LibraryThing member greeniezona
This is the story of Jess, a young Malaysian American woman who has just moved back to Malaysia with her parents. They have been taken in by her father's family, but Jess knows almost nothing about her mother's -- something that becomes even more clear when Jess meets her mother's recently deceased
The pace is a little slow sometimes, but I was rooting for Jess from the beginning and invested in her figuring out a way of her mess.
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mother. (Yes, you read that right. She meets her grandmother AFTER her grandmother has died.) Drawn into a conflict over a shrine scheduled to be demolished, Jess has to decide who she is more worried about pissing off: the ghost of her dead grandmother, an obscenely rich CEO with gang ties, or a god.The pace is a little slow sometimes, but I was rooting for Jess from the beginning and invested in her figuring out a way of her mess.
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