The book starts and we meet Helen and Marigold a mother and daughter, who are on a plane traveling from San Francisco to Hong Kong for a wedding.
Tunglam, Guangdong, China, during World War II: Ha Yut Ying is just a little girl when Japanese soldiers invade her town, and her house. Her family has escape to the mountains, and she was sent back to their home in a little village to get some medications for her sick brother. She hides in a closet for the soldiers, afraid they will shoot her, but when they open the closet as they hear a sound from it, they don't see Helen, as she has turned invisible for the first time in her life. She luckily can escape back to her family. After the war, she is send to the lavish home of her wealthy father and his second wife in Hong Kong. She is promised to go to a good school, but her stepmother slowly starts using her as a maid, and Yut Ying also has to work in the shoe factory of her aunt. Her father also has another daughter, Lily, and they become friends. She also meets a kind guy named Tommy, who is the grandson of the wealthy soymilk factory owner, who makes a picture of Yut Ying that becomes a poster for their brand. But her stepmother turns more harsh and gruel, and Lily is sent away to marry a rich husband. And then her beloved Tommy marries someone else.. When Lily returns years later and turns ill and passes away, Yut Ying is devastated, as they planned to run away together, making herself invisible and leaving her shadow behind, Yut Ying runs away to start a new life for herself. First as a singer in a club, and when she marries Philip, they move to the United States and open a Chinese restaurant, and where they get three daughters, and open a bakery named ' Three Flowers''. But Yut Ying still is suffering from becoming invisble in difficult situations, which is more and more a curse, and it becomes more difficult when her daughter Marigold is more and more interested in her past, and that leads to a thrilling ending of the story of Fishbone Cinderella, when Yut Ying, now named Helen, is in Hong Kong for the wedding of her other daugher, and travels to her childhood home to find back her shadow which she left behind in Lily's room..
I think Fishbone Cinderella is by far one of the very best books coming out this year. I totally didn't know what to expect, but it truly blew me away. This book is just in one word, fantastic! The story travels back and forth in time, from Helen and Marigold on the plane from San Francisco to Hong Kong in the more present time, to Yut Ying's past in the 1940's, and to the 1950's, 60's and 70's when the family of Helen has moved to the USA, where we follow their life with ups and downs there. The storyline is just terrific, everything is worked out so well by the author, and the main and side characters where all fabulous as well. I also loved the small part of magical realism in it with Helen being able to make herself invisible in dangerous situations. It is a Cinderella story in some way, but set in a totally different setting and with other twists and turns. The stepmother is truly a ''Tai-Tai'' in this novel and men, she turned from nice to true evil, especially in the end, which was an ending I truly didn't expect, but it was an ending with truly fits this book.
Overall, this is truly a great new novel, set in both the past and present in China Hong Kong and the United States, a Cinderella story with a twist that I highly recommend reading!
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