There are some stories that are just so good that, even centuries later, we still tell them. We still tell the stories of Achilles and Odysseus, Beowulf and Hamlet, Scheherazade and Mulan. Regretfully, I wasn’t familiar with the stories S.L. Huang retells in The Water Outlaws beyond knowing that the characters are gender-flipped retellings from the Chinese Classic Water Margin. Now that I’ve read this action-packed story of impossible odds, I hope Huang brings us more from China’s literary tradition. Gosh, it sounds so stuffy when I say it like that! I blame the fact that I work with academics and read their articles all the time. The Water Outlaws is the opposite of stuffy. It’s a wild ride full of supernatural martial arts, injustice, alchemy, friendship, and so much more...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.