so i was unable to complete reading this book (i couldn't redownload the arc for some reason?) but it goes against my heart to not review this book so i will do my best to review with my current knowledge. if you read this review, take everything with a fat grain of salt; i stopped at 22%.

i liked the premise of this book, and it slotted neatly into some of my favorite things; female protagonists, china setting, fantasy. i liked the setting of the novel and i thought it felt quite real. the writing of shanghai was very alluring. however, i had a hard time connecting to the main character and the side characters, and was quite confused by the main character's interactions with the gang man( i forgot his name i'm sorry!). maybe it's just because i read so few of the novel though so it might be on me.

i'm gonna be real i haven't read enough to make a concrete judgement on this book and that is totally on me. i honestly think this book may not have been for me, but who's to say? i can't recommend it, but i can't not recommend it either. i would just recommend picking it up for yourself.

thanks to netgalley for the arc!

If you loved Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights, you’ll enjoy the setting of Daughter of Calamity.

1920’s Shanghai full of tension between the Chinese and the foreigners after the concession. We follow Vilma (Jingwen) who is a cabaret dancer tangentially involved in gang activities.

I’m not sure how I feel about any of the characters in the book. I can’t say I really liked or felt connected to any of them. I also can’t get into their minds to understand how you can witness massacres one day and then just go on dancing. I know it’s survival, but the lack of connection to the characters just didn’t make it work for me.

I loved the premise and the blends of mythology and history, but overall it wasn’t the book for me.

I definitely think this could be a well loved book for other readers! The things that frustrated me are not common pet peeves, so definitely give it a go if the premise sounds interesting to you.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance read of this book.

I had to DNF this book at around 30% because it was getting frustrating. It seemed to over-explain irrelevant things like the style of dress someone was wearing or how a specific shop came to be. But then it would under-explain elements that would've driven the plot forward. I also feel like too many side characters were introduced even though nothing was done with them and they didn't add anything to the story.

I think this book still has potential though so I will try to give it another chance.

This was a really interesting book. It was hard to put down. It was very atmospheric and really transported me.

There's no arguing the author's talent with words. She built the setting of Shanghai so viscerally and with great attention to detail. Unfortunately, that didn't translate to plot, world-building, or characters.

Jingwen is a showgirl by day and an errand girl by night. She has no desire to take over her grandmother's gang, but still helps out when needed. When dancers start having their faces stolen Jingwen is forced to confront the darker side of luxury.

As far as settings go, Daughter of Calamity did fantastic. Lin did a beautiful job of displaying the opposing sides of Shanghai: the good and the bad. She brought dimly lit alleys and opulent stages to life with detailed descriptions.

I thought I would love this book, but the further I read the more confused and bored I was. The magic system is half-baked, at best. It lacks solid guidelines and structures, so anything goes. The mechanics behind it were never explored so I just had to roll with it, which I hated. It was made worse since what the characters see/hear is not always true. I was constantly guessing what was true and false.

Jingwen is shallow and such a mechanical character. Her personality is...dancing? That's all I got. Her emotions of love, hate, and sadness, read like a programmed robot. Even then, she got over her emotions weirdly fast. She would experience something undeniably horrific and traumatizing, but continue living like it never happened. And this was the main character!

The problem with the side characters is they play vital roles, in theory. But because they are not fleshed out, they are caricatures of what their roles are supposed to be. For example, the villain? Never got an explanation for his motivations or his goals. The love interest/hero is even worse. The author info-dumped his background to explain his motivations, which explained nothing. I learned that he wants to be a hero because he likes heroes.

I'm always disappointed when you can see the potential on the page but it's never translated into the story. Daughter of Calamity would have easily been a five-star read if the characters and world had been properly developed. While this book was half-baked, I will read the author's future works. This a debut novel so hopefully she will continue to improve with time.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I don't know if the girl was a Calamity (which she was) or the book itself was a "calamity." In any event, I DNF this story as I couldn't even enjoy the few chapters I did read. Didn't care for the story, didn't care for the writing, I just didn't care. Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

I really, really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately it is a DNF for me @ 31%

Let's just start off with the fact that this book cover is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS, it's such a visually appealing book with a fascinating premise, and of course I want to support my AAPI girlies, so I had high hopes for this book. But unfortunately, the writing was sooooo ornery, it made it absolutely impossible to get through this book. However, I saw that this is the author's debut novel, so of course I was not expecting the pristine skill of my favorite novel veterans, so I tried my hardest to push through the writing style and get deeper in the book. However, the characters were so unbelievable to me and acted so illogically I simply could not force myself to get through with this.

So starting off with the writing style: when I say this book is "descriptive" man, is it DESCRIPTIVE. In five paragraphs of words you probably get about one sentence of plot-relevant words. It started off with me being like ooh, the author is doing a great job at setting the scene and making the world seem very eerie and mystical and gothic, and transformed into me backpacking in the depths of the amazon jungle using a toothpick to try to hack through the descriptions to actually understand what the author was trying to convey. THERE ARE SO MANY SIMILES. EVERY DESCRIPTION IS A SIMILE. I GET IT THIS IS AN ORIENTAL SETTING AND WEIRD STUFF IS GOING ON. Here's a little slice of what happens in THE FIRST CHAPTER of the book:
"wearing my pride like an ostrich feather fan"
"night unfolds...like a sigh against a mirror"
"muted, like the beginning of a dream"
"...like a water color brush being dragged.....[this goes on forever]"
"hanging...like hot breath on glass"
"Xiao Lei's silver hand glide[s] through the night air, like a koi drifting along a riverbed"
...and there are way more in the first chapter alone

But given that I tried to look past this, let's get into the character development of the book...I do not understand why Jingwen hates/likes the people she does at all. There is really no substantial evidence given, and I feel like most of this is so illogical. Like when some random stranger you literally just met jumps out of a tree, and asks you (a dancer) to kill a Big Bad and frame your relative, why in the world would you just say yes???? Like first off, you have absolutely no experience killing (presumably) and especially targeting someone who is probably very well guarded and experienced in violence? Like who gave Jingwen the audacity to just be like "mm yea totally sounds reasonable I can totally pull that off" also I get that you just had a minor tiff with said family member, but I really could not see why that would motivate you to frame said person for murder of a very high profile and dangerous person....also this plan is all from some dude she just met...girl a guy having sexy eyes does not mean you should just agree to everything he asks of you

Also the worldbuilding is kinda weird. Magic was very randomly just dropped in, not explained well at all, and not questioned at all by Jingwen. She's just like ope guess there's just some magic smoke wolf creature now? Like girl how are you not questioning these things a little more;

ANyways,,, overall, I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately, it fell very flat for me.

Thanks Netgalley and publisher for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I think this books tried to be too atmospheric that the story was lost and the characters were underwhelming
The blurb was interesting and I genuinely wanted to like it but there was just too many plot lines interwoven and all of them blended and failed. The writing style was beautiful but what good is it if you don't get a story with it?

DAUGHTER OF CALAMITY
Rosalie M. Lin

This is my first experience with Rosalie M. Lin. Unfortunately, DAUGHTER OF CALAMITY was a DNF for me. I read for both plot and language but do not like it when language supersedes plot in this way. Most of the writing felt unnecessary and it felt like a debut that needed a lot more editing and a more direct focus.

I did not enjoy my reading experience.

Thanks to Netgalley, and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy! I’m sorry this one did not work for me.

DAUGHTER OF CALAMITY…⭐⭐

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read this ARC for a review.

This book, DOC, was so underwhelming, and simultaneously an overwhelming hot mess. It felt as though the author was trying to accomplish way too much and in doing so it became a large, hot, confusing mess. So trying to describe this book and review is going to be messy.

DOC is West coming into the East and putting it's influences into hands into everything, while making its people forget its history. The FMC, Jingwen, is the granddaughter of a "doctor" who is able to surgically remove and replace human parts with silver prosthetics, and more shockingly, parts from other humans and animals. Jingwen wants to break away from her grandmother's way and legacy, and become a dancer in a club. Her own mother is dancer for another night club. There's the gang who protects and uses the grandmother because of her odd magical powers. There's also a strange Westerner who catches the eye of the FMC, a strange young man from a "rival gang," and another character with their own motive and need for revenge.

I want to try to give credit for the author for trying to build the world of mythology, but it falls short between the baffling multiple plot lines. I wish the author the best as I wanted to DNF this multiple times, and would not even recommend this to anyone. It is upsetting for me to read that this would be for fans of SA Chakraborty, as this was miles from her work.

I’m really not quite sure what to say about his book. The premise was very interesting and I couldn’t wait to get into it but somewhere along the way it just lost my attention. I was able to get through it but something was just missing for me b

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of the book drew me in but once I started reading it, I just couldn’t get into it at all.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

Set in a supernatural tinged 1930s Shanghai, a cabaret dancer is caught between two men and a mystery of missing body parts. At first the story was compelling but then devolved into silly dialogue and one dimensional characters. Some may like this but it just wasn’t for me. Thank you to NetGalley for a chance to read and review this one.

What a beautiful mess this book is. The writing is somewhere between mediocre and brilliant and the plot and ideas appear to be lost even to the author. Maybe it just isn't for me entirely, but I still enjoyed it thoroughly enough to not dnf. And we all know how I like to do that.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this novel about a magical time in the history of Shanghai, the 1930's where the sound of jazz, the smell of booze, the taste of danger, all mingle together, and something far darker lurks outside of the people's senses.

When reading I always have a mental soundtrack in my head, especially when reading fiction. Sometimes it takes a chapter, weird books get sort of a Brian Eno, ambient sound, adventure peppy music close to Indiana Jones. For this book it was all hot jazz, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Count Basie. Swing music that makes the fingers tap on the back of the e-reader. This story also made me think in black and white, like a fine noir movie. Or a Universal monster picture. There was a lot of atmosphere right from the beginning, and it only got darker. Daughter of Calamity is the debut novel of Rosalie M. Lin, and is a gothic story set in Shanghai before the Second World War, a time where the music swung, everything seemed possible, and yet the past never stays far behind.

Jingwen makes her money, and her fun dancing at the premiere dance hall in Shanghai the Paramount. Jingwen spends the night swinging and entertaining the local tourists, all with money to spend, in competition with her friends, who also battle over the cutest person, or more likely the richest. Jingwen also works with her Grandma, who is a surgeon for one of the most powerful underworld groups in the city. Jingwen's grandmother hopes that Jingwen will take over her job, something that Jingwen has no interest in. Jingwen would rather dance and have fun than do magical modifications to gangsters, though one gangster is always pushing her to be more. Jingwen's perfect world is soon ruined when a friend/competitor is attacked and her face stolen away, Jingwen begins to investigate. Soon these faces are appearing on the faces of socialites in the city, powerful people, that people like Jingwen can not touch. However Jingwen is not without her own abilities, abilities that might be stronger than Jingwen suspects.

A big historical novel, with some fantasy, espionage, and lots of atmosphere. There is a lot going on in this novel, and sometimes one might have to read a few pages back just to be sure the story is going the way it is going, but this is a minor matter. Lin mixes fiction, real events and people, along with magic, and a sense that all this, the freedom, music, even way of life, might be ending soon. The characters are quite good, at first meeting Jingwen and her dancer friends seem one-note, but this changes as one realizes this is the face they wear to get money, or more importantly get through everything. As the book goes on the characters grow, their motivations come clearer, and the stakes really do seem to matter. Much of this world was new to me, and I liked the use of magic, mythology, and human greed that explained so much. For a debut this is a very strong start, with a story that holds up well to the end.

Recommended for readers who like big stories with lots of strong female characters. I look forward to more by Rosalie M. Lin.

Daughter of Calamity is a vivid and atmospheric debut. Set in Shanghai, Jingwen is a cabaret dancer who never expects to find violence on the dance floor. When a dancer has her lips stolen by cruel magic, Jingwen decides to investigate. Jingwen must choose whether to sink into the secrets her grandmother and friends have been keeping from her. As a surgeon to gangsters, Jingwen’s grandmother has many mysterious connections. Jingwen must decide whether to trust her new connections as more dancers across the city are targeted.

I loved how Rosalie M. Lin’s writing is filled with sensory description. Readers will feel that they’re walking beside Jingwen as she explores the secrets of Shanghai. There are lots of twists and red herrings to the mystery of who is stealing body parts of the dancers. While Jingwen doesn’t always get along with her fellow cabaret dancers, no one is going to get away with harming them.

Lin explores complex themes of sisterhood and family bonds. I appreciated the clever parallels to the real-world stealing of culture and fetishization of certain features. At times the pacing of the book felt a little off, but I still really enjoyed the story. Daughter of Calamity is perfect for readers who seek a dreamy and atmospheric tale with twists. I’m looking forward to seeing what Rosalie M. Lin writes next!

Thank you to Rosalie M. Lin, St. Martin’s Press, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Goodreads, Instagram, Storygraph, Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc.

Daughter of Calamity is a thrilling historical fantasy set in 1930s Shanghai, a city teeming with life and secrets. Jingwen's story as a cabaret dancer caught up in the city's underworld is a captivating tale of mystery and danger. Rosalie M. Lin paints a vivid picture of Shanghai, making it feel like a character itself. While the pacing can be a bit slow, the plot is engaging, with plenty of twists to keep you on your toes.

Lin's blend of fantasy and history is seamless, creating a world that feels both real and magical. The characters, especially Jingwen, are well-rounded and intriguing, each with their own quirks and motives. Despite some rough edges in the writing and pacing, "Daughter of Calamity" is a compelling read that will appeal to fans of historical fiction and fantasy, offering a glimpse into a fascinating era filled with enchantment and intrigue.


St. Martin's Press provided a complimentary digital eARC of this novel. All opinions in this review are my own.

A glittering façade of exotic nightclubs and cabarets illuminate the streets of Jazz Age Shanghai, concealing a seething underworld run by gangsters and villains―an urban anomaly personified in Lin’s historical fantasy debut. Cabaret dancer Jingwen straddles both worlds, and her love affair with the incongruous city of her birth permeates the novel. Raised by her grandmother, Liqing, a renowned black-market surgeon, Jingwen’s regular Friday task since childhood is to deliver a bag of bones to a gang member of the Blue Dawn, who in return provides protection. Jingwen neither knows nor questions the bones’ destination, because she’s happiest in the competitive dance world, where she and fellow-dancer, Beibei, bet on who will snag the wealthiest client for the Firefighters’ Yuletide Ball. Enter Bailey Thompson, a millionaire New York doctor, who sweeps Jingwen off her feet. But Jingwen finds she needs assistance to help her friends when a beautiful dancer is mutilated. Nalan Zikai, a wolf-conjuring shaman from the Court of Exiles, demands a high-ranking death as payment for his help, a death Jingwen can facilitate by agreeing to her grandmother’s request that she apprentice as a surgeon. But is Jingwen willing to risk opposing Liqing’s power and its likely supernatural source?

This is an enticing mix of Chinese mythology and history, using superb world-building. Sometimes it is impossible to tell where reality ends and the green-smoke-induced fantasies begin. Shanghai is an enigmatic city whose culture is disappearing under a stampede from the West; foreigners sucking the essence from it, through illegal trade and profit. There are power struggles and gang politics, goddesses and demons, and weapons made from heavenly steel. Characters are vividly believable and vastly diverse. Jingwen’s efforts to change the city’s power dynamics prove difficult and dangerous, but there’s no turning back. A splendidly imaginative debut.

Omg!! This was an adventure and not quite what I expected from the description!

Jingwen is a dancer at the Paramount in the 1930s with deep familial ties to the Blue Dawn gang. When she discovers that dancers have been getting their body parts removed (and attached to wealthier people) she goes on an adventure through the deep underbelly of Shanghai.

"Daughter of Calamity" captivated me with its exquisite prose, as Lin masterfully wove vivid imagery that transported me into the heart of the narrative. The compelling storyline presented complex adversaries that forced me to reconsider my perceptions of morality. Throughout the narrative, conflicting ideologies clashed — from traditionalism versus modernism to globalization versus localization, and the juxtaposition of technology and spirituality. Yet, Lin's nuanced perspective revealed the inherent flaws within any belief system, prompting a reflection on the necessity of embracing change while safeguarding the well-being of our loved ones.

Although the story unfolds gradually, I found myself deeply engaged by its intricacies. The author introduces numerous characters and concepts that may seem insignificant but later prove pivotal to the narrative.

From the 70% mark onward, the story becomes utterly gripping, making it difficult to put the book down. Patience truly pays off in this tale!

I stopped after chapter 1 (6%). The writing and the story feel generic and somewhat lifeless.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.