Basic Summary: Wei-guo wants to be the 3rd husband of May-Ling. May-Ling and her two husbands, Han and XX, try to figure out whether Wei-guo will fit in with the family and if they can make it work.
Warnings: There are scenes which depict a woman forcing herself sexually on a man.
Review:
Setting
This book is set in the near future in China where there are millions of men who are unwed due to there not being enough women. The government has legalized women taking on a third husband. Now, when I first read the premise, I though the women would hold more power in the relationship. That is not the case. Women don’t actually have as much choice in who their husband will be. Now, May-Ling does have say in who she will marry (a third time) but this is more due to one of her husbands being gay (thus wanting her to be happy with a man who is willing to have sex with her) and the other husband is not interested in having a sexual relationship with her (and she doesn’t really want to with him either).
I thought the author did a good job with setting and description of surrounding. If I had any complaints about setting, it would be explaining better the war games that single men are adept to play. Those parts did get a bit confusing for me.
Characters
While I may not have liked the characters all the time, they were certainly fleshed out. And a lot of their unlike-ability can go back to the impossible situations they find themselves in. May-Ling loves and wants a sexual relationship with her first husband, Han, but he is gay and not interested. He loves her as a person and doesn’t want to leave her due to that and he doesn’t want to go through a re-education program.
While I cannot say with any type of certainty whether XX is a good representation of someone who is autistic, he was a whole person through the novel. He had his own wants and wishes.
Wei-guo, to me, felt the least rounded but I thought the author did well with his motivations and why he does the things he does.
May-Ling was definitely well rounded though she does things that certainly make me dislike her such as not taking no for an answer when it comes to Han (and even XX at one time) sexually.
Plot
I thought the plot, when I first picked up the book, was about how Wei-guo settles in as a third husband into the family. However, the whole of the book is the courtship Wei-guo goes through to try and be a part of the family. It’s also about Han and XX (people who have autism are considered Willfully Sterile and shouldn’t be husbands/wives) and how they keep their secrets.
I liked the plot up until the last 1/4th of the book and that’s because it felt like some of the plot points came out of nowhere.
Oveall
I do like the ideas explored in this novel and would certainly read other works by Maggie Shen King.
May you get lost in a book,
Chrissy