The Painted Veil

Interesting. A lot of very blatant racism. I don't know how much I ultimately enjoyed it. It was an interesting character study, mostly, of Kitty Fane. While she grew a lot and I found her thoughts and growth interesting, I didn't ultimately like how it ended and the conclusions she came to.

And did I mention that blatant racism thing? Yeahhhhh, it took over half of the book to reeeaaaallllly get into it, but once Kitty started working in the convent there were some very gross descriptions of Chinese people. It's one of those "classics" where the racism needs to be addressed and interrogated and ought to be replaced in a classroom with something either more racially sensitive or written by a person of color.

ALSO, I want Colonel Yu to be into Walter. I want both of them to have had a lingering moment of happiness, but hey. That's just me.

This was a book out of my typical preferences. I did enjoy it- it was well written and felt almost hitchcockian in its execution. Definitely worth reading, but also a bit bleak and just made you feel kind of twisted pity or sympathy for the characters.