A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang

genre: historical fiction/retelling

Xishi's life has been scarred by war.  Even in her tiny riverside village, her losses have been heartbreaking.  The fact that she has a beauty that is unmatched hasn't taken the edge off of the pain she's felt.  So when Xishi is given an opportunity to exact revenge on the kindgom that wreaked such destruction, she is willing, even if that means becoming an infiltrator and a spy as a concubine in an enemy palace.

This retelling of a Chinese legend sounded super promising - and I am glad that I at least have the idea of Xishi in my mind.  But I wonder if the "real" Xishi was a more complex character than the one here in this book.  Her dialogue often came off as rather simpering, even when she is supposedly with her true love, the man who recruited her to be a spy in the first place.  The entire weird love triangle situation here didn't particularly work for me - the king that Xishi is seducing is a one dimensional fop with a brutally violent streak, so it was hard for me to ever really either his or Xishi's emotions when it came to "romance."

I think I just had to suspend my disbelief too many times.  Too many questions popped into my head while I was reading that didn't get answered, leaving plot holes that frustrated me. At the same time, I did want to finish it - so I think that even beyond this, I did still want to know how it ended.  Of course, I didn't particularly love the ending either, so.  There you go.  2.5 stars rounded up to three for being interesting enough to keep me reading until the end and for introducing me to a Chinese legend.