31.
Title: [The Ghost Bride]
Author: Yangsze Choo
Genre: Fiction
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Library Book
Date Completed: May 9, 2014
Rating: ***

Yangsze Choo's The Ghost Bride offers an intriguing narrative, but fails to develop the story to its potential.  Li Lan, a young woman whose dreams are plagued by a repugnant posthumous suitor, is often obtuse, trusting where it's obvious she shouldn't, and almost exclusively seeking others to save her from her choices.  It is difficult to remain engaged in the slow plot, despite a predisposition to such otherworldly stories; if not for the final developments (and, really, the final line), the story would not rate even three stars, but the final twist redeems an otherwise lackluster folktale. 

32.

Title: [Raven Girl]
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Genre: Fable
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Library Book
Date Completed: May 12, 2014
Rating: *****

Audrey Niffenegger's Raven Girl, about a young woman whose parents are a raven and a postman, recalls the tradition of fables and folktales, with an acceptance of the absurd, and no predisposition to explain or elaborate on the surreal.  That a postman would fall in love with a raven is of no question, and that the two could wed and produce a daughter goes unchallenged, even when the daughter becomes engaged in the world beyond their small home.  The plight of the Raven Girl is suggestive of transgendered children, as she feels wrong in the form in which she is born, and longs to be other.  She eventually meets a doctor willing to help her seek her better form, with complicated and beautiful consequences.  The tale is wonderfully disturbing on some levels, and highly sympathetic on every level.  This is a beautiful book and a beautiful story for readers young and old.