The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

A sweeping historical novel about a dance-hall girl and an orphan boy whose fates entangle over an old Chinese superstition about men who turn into tigers, set in 1930s Malaysia. Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother's Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for.

Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master's dying wish: that Ren find the man's finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master's soul will wander the earth forever.

As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths wracks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren's increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes.

Yangsze Choo's The Night Tiger pulls us into a world of servants and masters, age-old superstition and modern idealism, sibling rivalry and forbidden love. But anchoring this dazzling, propulsive novel is the intimate coming of age of a child and a young woman, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible.

 

400 pages (February 2019)

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To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.) 

 

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Chapter 1 of The Night Tiger read by the author at a Singaporean bookstore "Meet the Author" event:

This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

 

Title Read-alikes: Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan; Ghost Eater by Frederick Highland; The Garden of Evening Mists by Twan Eng Tan; The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden; Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord; Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu; Empire of Sand Tasha Suri; A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes; and The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan.

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez

Arturo and Alma Rivera have lived their whole lives in Mexico. One day, their beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Maribel, sustains a terrible injury, one that casts doubt on whether she’ll ever be the same. And so, leaving all they have behind, the Riveras come to America with a single dream: that in this country of great opportunity and resources, Maribel can get better.

When Mayor Toro, whose family is from Panama, sees Maribel in a Dollar Tree store, it is love at first sight. It’s also the beginning of a friendship between the Rivera and Toro families, whose web of guilt and love and responsibility is at this novel’s core.

Woven into their stories are the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America. Their journeys and their voices will inspire you, surprise you, and break your heart.

Suspenseful, wry and immediate, rich in spirit and humanity, The Book of Unknown Americans is a work of rare force and originality that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be an American.

285 pages (June 2014)

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Lit Guide from LitLovers.

Reading Guide from BookMovement.

Reading Guide from ReadingGroupChoices.

 

Reading Guide from Vintage Books (Knopf/Doubleday Publishing Group)

 

To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)

 

The Book of Unknown Americans at goodreads

 

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This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok; How Are You Going to Save Yourself by J. M. Holmes; We Never Asked for Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh; Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende; Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng; Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan; The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice; The Leavers by Lisa Ko; Afterlife by Julia Alvarez; I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez; The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett; Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi; and The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.