e-Audio, 11:26:16
Narrated by: Jennie Kwan & Eunice Wong
Release Date: April 23, 2024
Published by: Books on Tape (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)
Read from: April 27-30, 2024
Stand-alone
Source: PRH App (I received a copy of this e-book from the publisher and the app in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
Content Warning: Murder, Racism, Violence, Misogyny, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Blood
For Readers Interested In: Sparkly Covers, Historical, Mystery, Racial/Ethnic Diversity, YALos Angeles, 1932: Lulu Wong, star of the silver screen and the pride of Chinatown, has a face known to practically anyone, especially to the Chow sisters—May, Gemma, and Peony—Lulu’s former classmates and neighbors. So the girls instantly know it’s Lulu whose body they discover one morning in an out-of-the-way stable, far from the Beverly Hills mansion where she moved once her fame skyrocketed.
The sisters suspect Lulu’s death is the result of foul play, but the LAPD—known for being corrupt to the core—doesn’t seem motivated to investigate. Even worse, there are signs that point to the possibility of a police cover-up, and powerful forces in the city want to frame the killing as evidence that Chinatown is a den of iniquity and crime, even more reason it should be demolished to make room for the construction of a new railway depot, Union Station.
Worried that neither the police nor the papers will treat a Chinese girl fairly—no matter how famous and wealthy—the sisters set out to solve their friend’s murder themselves, and maybe save their neighborhood in the bargain. But with Lulu’s killer still on the loose, the girls’ investigation just might put them square in the crosshairs of a coldblooded murderer.
*MY THOUGHTS*
This is another one that was lost to me because it was wrongly pitched smh This cover is gorgeous and because it was pitched to me as a thriller I just KNEW I was going to love this. A thriller set in the 30’s? If you know me, you know I’m not a huge historical fan. I try to read historicals that have another genre I’m a fan of included to make it a little better for me. Too bad this one wasn’t exactly pitched correctly.
Ok so I was told this was going to be a thriller, but there was nothing thrilling that happened. It was just a mystery. And normally this wouldn’t matter at all to me. I would usually love a mystery. But when I’m looking for a thriller and then nothing thrilling happens, it really makes me want to DNF it. But I will say, the fact that I didn’t shows just how entertaining it was.
Like I said, I’m not a fan of historicals, but when I do read them, I always get so invested in learning everything I can about the person or event its about. In this one I learned so much about the movie scene and it shined a new light on the way Chinese people were treated in the movie scene. And the murder weapon?! I wish I could say what it was, because that was pretty cool. Literally only something that I would think about being in the movies. And the Author’s Note says the movie star in this one is loosely inspired by a real life Chinese movie star Anna May Wong.
The mysetery half was also frustrating. Unfortunately I resonated with parts of this too. The police didn’t want to help figure out who did it because they felt it was just another person from Chinatown that was gone. (Basically how they treat Black people.) Them trying to figure it out was really cool tho. Being a woman and being a person of color during that time and still being able to figure out what happened to Lulu was pretty amazing. I do wish they had less connections, just that they looked alike. Idk, that would have seemed more thrilling to me lol
I listened to the audio version of this and it was full cast. (Two different narrators for the two different POVs in the story.) I thought they did a phenomenal job. They had two different voices and they hit all the right inflections and they had all types of emotion, especially when they were trying to one up the cops when they were doing things they weren’t supposed to lol I thought they did a really great job.
This book was good, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Had I been told to expect that this was just a historical mystery, I think I would have enjoyed it more. But because I heard it was a historical thriller I spent the whole book waiting for it to get thrilling and the killed the whole vibe for me. Although some things were exciting for me, I couldn’t get over that part.
Overall, I give this
