jayvall reviewed Last Tang Standing by Lauren Ho
Review of 'Last Tang Standing' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I struggled with this on a number of levels. First, just in my own life, I'm less interested in a book where the entire plot is a woman trying to find a husband, and that's what it seemed like this book was going to be about based on the first couple of chapters. Eventually, the book became more about Andrea's growth as a person, but the initial conceit of "I'm old and the last one to get married in my family" couldn't be less appealing to me and I almost stopped reading because of it. Which is unfortunate, because I really wanted to give this book, with a Chinese MC living in Singapore, a chance. The fact that there were essentially no white people in this book was a plus, so I soldiered on, even though I ultimately think the book was too long by about 100 pages.
Again, if …
I struggled with this on a number of levels. First, just in my own life, I'm less interested in a book where the entire plot is a woman trying to find a husband, and that's what it seemed like this book was going to be about based on the first couple of chapters. Eventually, the book became more about Andrea's growth as a person, but the initial conceit of "I'm old and the last one to get married in my family" couldn't be less appealing to me and I almost stopped reading because of it. Which is unfortunate, because I really wanted to give this book, with a Chinese MC living in Singapore, a chance. The fact that there were essentially no white people in this book was a plus, so I soldiered on, even though I ultimately think the book was too long by about 100 pages.
Again, if this book had been sold as a novel, rather than genre romance, I would have been less irritated. I don't think this is the author's fault, I think this is a failure of marketing. I also always struggle with the "dear diary" style of book because it just makes no sense to me. When are you supposed to be jotting down all of these observations? And recounting entire conversations in a diary? I get you're not supposed to think about it this deeply, I just find it unbelievable.
Lastly, I found this entirely predictable. Not one thing happened in this book that I found surprising. So, on that level it was boring, even though I liked certain elements. I would probably read another book by the author because I think some of my issues were debut author issues, but I hope her next editor pushes her to make the story tighter and I hope her next marketing team figures out how to sell the book with accuracy.