I have had a hard time getting into books lately, but this one broke my book reading issues. I was pulled in by the general summary of the book; A stressed zillenial fights God's, ghosts, and gangsters in 21st century Penang. Who couldn't be enticed by that?

I really enjoyed the story. It could be slow at times and bogged down by details, but who couldn't love Jess' mom and grandmother? I loved seeing the interweaving of old school gods with modern day and learning about the culture of Malaysia. I hope that everyone gives this book a chance!

Right from the start, <i>Black Water Sister</i> had me hooked. The way Jess relates to her identity in the story was incredibly powerful. I especially love that she calls her grandma Ah Ma, as that's how I've always referred to both my grandmothers. (There are many different terms for grandma in various Chinese cultures/subcultures.)

The Malaysian setting and cultural aspects to the story were an absolute joy to read. I loved the Black Water Sister character, Jess' language struggles, the way she's sorting through what it means to be Chinese Malaysian and lesbian, and the family secrets.

Please note: though there are funnier/lighthearted parts, the story does go a bit darker than the tone might suggest.

Overall, this was a great read! Thank you Berkley Publishing for sending me an advanced electronic copy in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which was part post-collegiate existential crisis, part ghost story, and part thrilling page-turner with gangsters and family feuds. I especially loved that it was set in Penang, as I was fortunate to visit the island a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

A story of a closeted lesbian having just moved back home to be there for her ailing father...only for home to move to Malaysia...and for her alienated grandmother's ghost to start haunting her.

This novel was a contemporary/urban fantasy novel, so don't think its going to have an entirely new world to explore like some fantasy. That being said, the author does a wonderful job of laying out the scenery of Malaysia for us! There is a romantic in this novel, but it takes place entirely long-distance, with the characters girlfriend acting as a supporting cast member. Most of this novel is about family, and the skeletons that can be found in their closets.

I really enjoyed the rich cast and the plot of the novel. this was my first book that I have read from Zen Cho and I want to find more!

(I received this book as a digital arc through Netgalley)

so there is a lot to unpack and I haven't read the other reviews in fear of spoilers but I have noticed the several things that made this book disappointing to me: causal racism, homophobia, and colorism.

I need to clarify that I am Black and I understand racism and colorism through the American lens and if you are reading this review you need to understand that colorism and racism develop to particular regions of their society. So when I was presented with the colorism in this book it was in regards to the color of your skin is attached to the type of job you had: indoor jobs fair tone and outdoor jobs darker tone; Our main character Jess grew up in the US and sees the colorism throughout the book and doesn't speak out against it which rubbed me the wrong way ON TOP OF her families' blase racist comments about people from India. When Jess is meant with racist comments, homophobia, and colorism she wasn't being anti-racist, she was not having those hard conversations with her parents.
Jess throughout the book prides herself on talking back to her parents and challenging them but when it comes to these hard discussions she backs down. The homophobia was likely the only Jess challenged when she is hinted at coming out to her parents so baby steps



The Book
The magic systems felt unclear and nothing progressed the understanding for the reader. The later scene with the medium really brought everything into perspective but the pay off wasn't there. The character has a meta moment where she realizes that she is living in a world where she is the outsider and doesn't know where to being in her search for ~reasons~ for a brief moment she does ask her parents on insight but it doesn't help up go anywhere. The information that we need never gets discovered by our MC but only told to her through her grandmother which got repetitive.

I think the tag line for the book was what really drew me in and the execution is what drew me out

I have another of Zen Cho's fantasy novels (Sorcerer to the Crown) sitting on my TBR shelf which is much different than her latest I am told. I am even more eager to read that one now that I have read the author's Black Water Sister, which is a Malaysian-set contemporary fantasy. Jessamyn Teoh, aka Jess, and her parents have moved back to Malaysia to start a new life after having lost just about everything due to her father's bout with cancer. Jess starts hearing voices, which at first she is sure must be due to stress, only to soon come to accept that it is the ghost of her estranged grandmother. Jess does not know much about her mother's side of the family and her mother does not like to talk about it. During her life, Jess's grandmother was a spirit medium for a god known as the Black Water Sister. Jess reluctantly agrees to help her grandmother's spirit settle a score with a gang boss who offended the god. She soon finds herself in over her head in a world of gods and ghosts--with her own life at stake.

I admit it took me a moment to settle into Black Water Sister. It starts out a bit slow, but eventually I found myself not wanting to put the novel down. I felt just as lost as Jess did at first, not really understanding what was going on--which is a point in favor of the author for putting me in the shoes of her main character early on. I enjoyed seeing Jess come into her own over the course of the novel. She is a new Harvard graduate, trying to find her place in a new country and life. She feels a strong sense of responsibility to her family, especially to their mental well-being given her father's recent illness. It cannot be easy. I also can appreciate how difficult it must be for Jess who is hiding a very big part of herself from her family, knowing how they feel about same sex relationships.

I found the mythology and world building very interesting. I know so little of Malaysian culture. I loved the juxtaposition of the traditional versus contemporary, including ancient beliefs with more modern Christianity, which is most obvious when Jess's paternal aunt becomes involved. I love Jess's family--how supportive and close they are. I think Jess's mom and her grandmother were among my favorite characters.

Black Water Sister has its dark moments as well as some funny moments. It was hard not to empathize with the Black Water Sister and Jess's grandmother and see how they ended up where they did. Although one particular mystery (or secret, if you prefer) was pretty obvious early on, so much of what happens in the novel was not. Add to that how things played out . . . well, this was a very satisfying read.

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho is a chilling, family-centred ghost story about cycles of harm and reclaiming power. Jess, a young Malaysian woman raised in America, moves back to her hometown with her parents—only to find her grandmother, Ah Ma, haunting her. What proceeds is a romp through Penang’s spiritual circles, real-estate tussles, gang rivalries, and hipster cafes in search of a way to resolve Ah Ma’s gripes, stop being haunted, and go back to every recent grad’s beloved pastime: looking for a job. There was an almost superhero-esque note to the story that made it a lot of fun, even when the subject matter grew dark.
Jess and I are of different backgrounds, but we’re both immigrants, and a lot of her experiences sent a pang of sadness and familiarity through me. Cho writes the precariousness of half-belonging beautifully, showing us the ceaseless and overlapping comfort-discomfort of living across two cultures. Watching Jess grow more familiar with Penang, her family history, and her language reminded me that belonging isn’t static. Reconnection is always possible.
Cho leads us on a mostly straight path through this haunting mystery. There isn’t much lingering on backstory or filler information. The tight focus really let the setting and characters shine, and I found it helped avoid the believability issue I so often have with paranormal fantasy. Ah Ma and Black Water Sister felt viscerally real—Ah Ma hilariously so, spirited and witty. Black Water Sister, on the other hand, was terrifying.
The connection between the three women holds together the core of this book. Jess’s experiences with them brought up so many painful questions—what price will we pay for our own safety? What harm do our traumas lead us to inflict upon each other? How can we heal when the damage is ongoing? Cho handles these wounds and fears with grace, honesty, and tender care. Black Water Sister is a powerful story of belonging, diaspora, family, courage, faith, forging agency under patriarchy, and kicking some ass.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I opened this book. What I first interpreted as a straightforward narrative about familial bonds turned out to be so much more. Set primarily in Malaysia, Zen Cho’s novel is spellbinding mix of folklore, reckoning with one’s heritage, and coming into your own.

This is 100% a case of "it's not you, it's me." And for that reason, even though I usually rate DNFed books only 1 star, I cannot do that to this book.

There is an element in this book where (the best way for me to describe it) people speak in dialect. I believe it's supposed to be in English, but I could be wrong and it's actually in Malay or Hokkien, which are two other languages mentioned in the book. I have always had an issue with fully understanding dialects or accents when they are written in books. And so I usually try my best at those parts and hope that it's not a big part of the story. Here it is. Because of how hard I have to try to comprehend it, I keep getting taken out of the story. And it is making my reading pace slow way down.

Normally if this happened I would try the audiobook, and I did try a bit of that. I had a much easier time with it, but the story also felt more focused on family ties than the ghost aspect I thought we were getting. I went in expecting an urban fantasy and instead it feels like a literary family drama.

I in no way think that this book is bad, but I know it's not for me.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating.

I'd like to start off that I'm really conflicted about writing this review. The main reason for this is: I liked the story but didn't like the execution. I really enjoyed the idea of girl being haunted by her grandmother and having to complete said grandmother's unfinished business. However! The way it was written was like an a constant inner monologue gone wrong with the grandmother being so annoying and Jess being the most boring character ever. Like the grandmother had more personality and back story then Jess did. Also my e-book had all these random words and punctuation so it made it super difficult to follow. The overall plot was satisfying though and I did like the ending. I definitely will be checking out Zen Cho book in the future to see if this was a fluke.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.

**3.5-stars rounded up**

After graduating from Harvard, Jessamyn Teoh, finds herself broke, unemployed and still unable to come out to her parents. With her father ill, her parents decide to move back to Malaysia and Jess is going with them. Having grown up in the United States, Jess knows it is going to be a huge adjustment, but also feels like she doesn't have a choice.

Now she gets to deal with a secret, long distance relationship with her girlfriend, on top of everything else. It's a lot of pressure, so when Jess begins to hear voices, she thinks she may actually be losing it. As it turns out, she's not really hearing voices, she is hearing one voice; that of her deceased Grandmother, Ah Ma.

When she was alive, Ah Ma was a spirit medium for a mysterious, local deity, known as the Black Water Sister. Ah Ma's spirit is restless, unable to cross over, until she seeks revenge against a powerful man who has offended the God. Ah Ma plans to use Jess for this mission.

Black Water Sister was like no other Contemporary Fantasy novel that I have ever read. It was modern, magical, fast-paced and full of over-the-top family drama! I really enjoyed watching the evolution Jess made as a character. She was smart, intuitive and had a great ability to adapt from the very beginning, but it also felt like she was really holding herself back.

Once she meets Ah Ma, even though the two butt heads in a lot of ways, that pressure made Jess grow and find a strength within herself that she didn't realize was there. The Malaysian setting and cultural background were so refreshing to read. That back drop is an important part of the story and I truly became immersed in it.

I was very impressed the complexity, nuance and fantastical elements included in this story. While this is my first Zen Cho novel, it certainly will not be my last!

Thank you so much to the publisher, Berkley Publishing, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I truly appreciate the opportunity!

Omg omg this book was legit insanely good!!!! I never heard of the author so thank you SO much Berkeley Publishing for uplifting asian authors. I like books that mix modern life with cultural/traditional ideologies. Sure they do not mix but boy does it make a great story! Honestly, I’m more scared of Ah Ma then Black Water Sister. The god is angry because she died a injustice and violent death. Ah Ma is a ghost with unfinished business but she’s a gangster mob figure head! She such a badass (sorry for the cuss word but she is!) spirit. I love how author’s word flow. It’s so poetic and straight forward. Makes the story move along more smoothly and easier to read. This definitely has to be a series or movie on Netflix or Hulu! It’s a great ownvoices story and quite entertaining! Thank you Berkeley Publishing for my e copy in exchange for an honest review of my own.

Overall: Gods, ghosts, family secrets and sapphics makes for a happy Amber.

Pros:
Relatable. This is an urban fantasy and all the parts that make it urban made it feel so relatable.
Gods and ghosts. Okay, I had to do the built like that because I requested it that way, but it was so worth it.
Family. At the heart of this complex story is really a story about family.

Cons:
Pacing. While this was not a downside for me, it is a bit slower paced that what I typically like.

I really enjoyed this story. I’ve never read anything quite like it. Jess is a recent Harvard grad who moves back to Malaysia to be with her family. She carries secrets from her family as she is juggling a LDR with another woman. The story revolves around Jess’s journey not only learning about herself and her extended family, but also Malaysian culture and mythology.

If you enjoy horror, supernatural, and humor elements in a story, I highly recommend picking up Black Water Sister. There were moments I laughed out loud. Ah Ma and Jess are both fierce characters who aren’t afraid to say what’s on their minds. I loved the parallels in their stories and personalities.

I ended up giving this story 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. The story took me until about 35% to feel invested.

3.5⭐

Overall I really enjoyed this paranormal urban fantasy! This was full of vengeful ghosts, zillennial identity crises, and complicated familial dynamics. Zen Cho really captured what it's like to be a little lost as a 20 something while simultaneously battling evil gods and invasive aunties. While this book got dark at times, it was overall a really fun and action packed story.

I loved the setting and exploration of immigration through the eyes of a woman who grew up in the US and is now moving "back home". I loved how the feeling of belonging and different were explored outside of a US/Western setting.

Jess was a great main character! She's messy and lost and sometimes unlikeable. But she captured what it's like to be a 20-something to perfection. She was strong without feeling invincible, smart yet struggling to find her place. I loved her internal conflict just as must as the external conflict.

And the external conflict was so unique and fun! I loved the combination of vengeful gods, nosey spirits, and gangsters. The action scenes were so well done and so intense - I FLEW through the last half of this book because things were so twisty and out of control.

I did feel as though the start of this book was a little slow - it took me about 25% before I was hooked and invested in the main character. But once I was, the rest of the book completely had me. The audiobook is fantastic as well if you're looking for next listen!

Overall this book felt really fresh and new. It's action-packed and full of great themes and mythology. I'm so excited to read more from Zen Cho!!

This review is live on Goodreads and will go live on my blog on 5/14 @ 9am

A novel about the intricate web of family - particularly when it spans generations and socioeconomic classes and country lines. It was the balance between doing right by your family and being true to yourself (the sheer number of secrets Jess had from her family when they were all up in each other's business all the time was just... Ooh girl you need to get something off your chest because your support system is full of holes of your own making).

Another thing: the book was unexpectedly very funny. There were random moments when Jess would say something that was so outside of the realm of the conversation (but very much in line with what I might be thinking) that it drew out laughter. It was the American-trained brashness and penchant for cursing, which was so incongruous with the polite way all of the characters were speaking to each other. It was so direct and refreshing and added a bit of levity to an otherwise pretty dark story.

I think I wanted a little bit more reconciliation at the end between Jess and the various people in her life she needs to reconcile with - but there is also something to be said for the vibes of "life goes on" that the end of this book leaves you with.

This book made me realize that I'm growing an interest in slow burns.

The supernatural elements and complex family relationships are peeled back slowly in layers, building up steadily until it all sort of crashes into calm.

The internal struggles that come with shame, cultural miscommunication, religion and spirituality, and intergenerational dynamics are ones that surpass culture. It's a story of hard truths that felt raw and real on top of the ghostly communications and godly interactions.

This was a story of secrets, familial and spiritual, that dropped enough crumbs to keep me interested from start to finish without being overwhelmed.

Black Water Sister is a refreshing Malaysian-set contemporary fantasy written in a compelling voice that will keep you turning pages well past your bedtime.

Jess has a lot on her plate. She might have graduated from Harvard but she’s jobless, closeted, in the middle of a move back to Malaysia with her parents, and she’s hearing the voice of her dead grandmother in her head. It’s not enough that she’s trying to keep a long distance relationship secret while living with her parents and her aunt’s family in a new country. What she initially believes is the stress finally getting to her turns out to be the first step into a world of spirits, gods and mediums that will take Jess to the breaking point – and past it. When an attempt to lay her Ah Mah’s unfinished business to rest leads to Jess becoming marked as a god’s new medium, Jess must fight to save her family and herself before it’s too late.

Best known for her historical fantasy of manners novels, Zen Cho takes on the modern world with this striking tale of a lost new adult struggling to find her balance in a post college world while life throws endless complications her way. Only in Jess’ case those complications include being possessed by her dead grandmother, getting on a gangster’s radar, and being forced to become the medium of a vengeful god. Despite these extraordinary additions, Cho manages to make Jess relatable. So many of her problems are grounded in reality. Learning how to strike a balance between duty to your family and duty to yourself is difficult for many of us, even without the complications of spirits and gods involved.

One Sentence Summary: When Jess and her family move back to Malaysia, Jess finds herself haunted by her estranged late grandmother on behalf of a god so both woman and god can take revenge on the businessman encroaching on the god's temple.

I don't actually know much about Malaysia, but have been trying to read more Asian-inspired fantasy, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to review Black Water Sister. It turned out to be quite a surprise since the main character, Jess, and her family are Chinese Malaysian. There's a bit of a language barrier both for Jess and the reader as Malaysian words and an Asian manner of speech are used delightfully unapologetically, but it quickly grew on me and I discovered that reading the dialogue quickly actually made it make more sense in my head. But this was actually a really fascinating read with ghosts, gods, gangs, powerful businessmen, dead women seeking revenge, and the obligatory overly involved Asian elders.

The Plot

After her father's cancer goes into remission, Jess and her parents pack up and leave the States for Malaysia. Recently graduated from college and now separated by space from her girlfriend, Jess flounders when they arrive at her aunt's house, where they will be staying. Caught between family expectations and her girlfriend pushing for her to come out, Jess unexpectedly begins to hear her dead grandmother's voice.

Ah Ma has a score to settle, and has selected Jess as the one to house her spirit so she can finish her unfinished business. But, as Ah Ma slowly brings Jess into the world she inhabited while alive, full of ghosts and gods and a bloodthirsty goddess, Jess becomes caught up in it, stuck in the battle between the goddess, Ah Ma, and a wealthy businessman with surprising ties and a great deal of money and influence.

Life becomes dangerous for Jess, and she has to keep it all from her family because her mother and Ah Ma have been estranged for years. Becoming a medium is not what she wanted, but it might be the only way to lay vindictive spirits to rest.

For anyone looking for a strong Asian-inspired fantasy, Black Water Sister needs to be a contender. This book takes the reader and drops them straight into Malaysia, straight into a Chinese family living in Malaysia. It's there in every word, in the jumbled English they speak, in their beliefs, in the major and minor Asian gods sprinkled in throughout the story. There are so many different elements, but they worked really well together to form a really tight plot where nothing was extraneous.

I liked that there were a lot of clashes in this book. There are cultural clashes as Jess was brought up in America and has lost some of her Asian culture. Now she's madly trying to take up the language while also trying not to offend family and other characters. As a reader being dropped into Malaysia, Jess really is the reader's portal into the world, though it was still a little confusing at times. Then there's the religious clash. This one was fun since Jess's mother still has some dealings with the gods and Jess's aunt, the one Jess's family is currently living with, is well and truly Christian. The different ways they dealt with Jess's "possession" was equal bits fun and serious. Finally, there's something of a sexuality clash with Jess being lesbian, but her family still expecting her to marry a man. It doesn't actually create as much tension as the other two, but it's there as an undertone, as another secret Jess is keeping, one she has to struggle with the whole book. I really liked how all of it felt grounded in real life and came to life in the spaces between character interactions.

There's a lot of really good things in Black Water Sister, so I was kind of disappointed the romance subplot wasn't stronger. It's actually quite straightforward, but just seemed to be almost non-existent at the same time. Mostly, it was wrapped up in Jess struggling with coming clean to her parents, so much so that I questioned the inclusion of Jess's girlfriend since she didn't really play a plot changing role. But, at the same time, I'm kind of glad it was there. It gave Jess herself something to mull over, something that she alone had to deal with, something that could ground her to herself considering both Ah Ma and the Black Water Sister want to use her body.

But what I liked most was that Black Water Sister focuses on family. No matter how you look at it, it revolves around Jess's nutty family. Everyone plays some kind of role, whether it's to push the story forward or to highlight the world. It's all about those tight family bonds whether or not they're wanted.

The Characters

Black Water Sister revolves around Jess's family, her mother's family and her father's family. There are also some other characters who are indirectly related, but it's mostly about Jess's family. They came off as very Chinese Malaysian, an interesting mix of Chinese and Malaysian cultures that grounded each character, that gave them their direction and sense of self. At the same time, perhaps because I felt the focus was on using the culture to paint each character, most of the characters felt really one note. There wasn't much complexity to them, no real history. Jess, Ah Ma, and the Black Water Sister, though, were a fantastic trio. With two of them being dead, it was so much fun getting to know them and their histories while Jess was stuck dealing with them.

I really liked Jess. She's a blend of Chinese, Malaysian, and American and there were some threads of her struggles with figuring out how it all slotted into her life. She's continually pulled by her Asian culture, by what's expected of her from her family, but her heart really wants other things. She's gutsy, yet cautious and a little reckless because a god wants to use her as her medium. But I really loved how she truly cared about her family, how they were always a matter of concern to her. At the same time, she really starts to come into her own during the book, learning that she really is deeply loved and to find safety in it to pursue the scary.

The Setting

Black Water Sister presents a really interesting world. It's ours, but there's an overlay of the supernatural. Malaysia is modern and dripping with heat with new, hot businesses popping up and sweat stains appearing as soon as you step out the door. But there are still temples to the old gods. I really liked that it felt distinctly Asian. Most of the world was explored through the culture. It felt like a deep dive into it, and it took me some time to figure it out. On the one hand, I liked being dropped into it. On the other, I wanted a translation guide or something. But I did really love the strong Asian elements. It felt both familiar and foreign to me, as though I could use knowledge of my own background to navigate this world.

What I really enjoyed, though, were the supernatural elements. The gods were fascinating. Many of them had been people who had been lifted to godhood after death. It was fascinating and a lot of fun, though I was confused over the distinction between god and ghost since both were fully capable of using a human body.

Overall

Black Water Sister was a surprisingly fun and delightful read. There's definitely a serious streak running through it, but I was always caught off guard by just how much fun I found it to be. It's both lighthearted and serious, dealing with heavy topics, but the interactions Jess has with everyone is casual and, well, fun. I adored her relationship with Ah Ma, but did want more of her romantic relationship. Overall, though, I loved the supernatural elements, the strong Asian setting and culture, and found the characters to be a lot of fun.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ace for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.