The Red Scholar’s Wake

Thank you so much to Aliette and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC for review. This has not influenced my opinion, all thoughts are my own.

I meant to post this review back in November, closer to the book’s release date. But you know, life happens, and here we are in March and I’m just now posting it!! Ah well. When it comes to books, you can never be late to the party so it doesn’t matter that it’s months after the release. So anyway, yes, today I am (finally) talking about The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard, which released November 24th 2022.

As you can see from the synopsis, this book is a sci-fi story about two characters who enter a marriage of convenience. WHICH IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE TROPES!!! Fake dating, marriage of convenience, ugh I love it so much. The two people falling for each other but repressing their feelings because it would ruin the arrangement! But they’re both in love and it’s perfect! MY FEELINGS!!! That summarizes how I feel about the romance in this story: MY FEELINGS!!! It was so well done, and I loved it.

But I also loved the other relationships! A lot of this novel is Xich Si finding her place, and learning where she wants to be in the world. She interacts with so many different people in the pirate sphere, and it’s very interesting to read about. Her character development through these interactions and other experiences is so wonderful to read about. This novel is so heavily character driven, and Aliette is a master of the craft.

The Red Scholar’s Wake along with the other novels in Aliette’s Xuya universe are so unapologetically Vietnamese. The style of sci-fi is so different to Western sci-fi, but I don’t really know how to articulate it. The feel is just different! And I love it. At the same time, it’s something that makes me a little sad – only because I know that a lot of readers are just so used to Western styles, and will write this off as “too weird.” I beg everyone to give this (and her other books) a chance! And to read with an open mind!

To give a specific example, Aliette uses terms like “big sis” and lil sis” which are direct translations of the honorifics/pronouns in the Vietnamese language. To a Western audience, it may seem awkward to have two married people refer to each other with these terms. But in Vietnamese, those terms do not have the same familial meaning in this context. It forces the reader to consider things from a different perspective and to learn something new if they haven’t seen it before. I really really respect Aliette for doing this.

There are more things I could say, but I’ll just finish with one thought. Which is that writing this review made me want to reread the book hahaha.

Have you read this? Or do you think you will check it out now? If you’re interested you can find more info about purchasing the book here! And if you want to see one of my reviews for another of Aliette’s books, you can read my review of Fireheart Tiger here!