Story Description:
Harper
Collins|August 12, 2013|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-1-44342-390-8
Leiyin has to make
a choice: Should she save her only child
or forever relinquish her own afterlife?
Civil war China is
fractured by social and political change.
Behind the magnificent gates of the Song family estate, however, none of
this upheaval has touched Leiyin, a spoiled and idealistic teenager. But when Leiyin meets the captivating
left-wing poet Hanchin, she defies her father and learns a harsh reality: that
her father has the power to dictate her fate.
Leyin’s punishment for disobedience leads to exile from her family, an
unwanted marriage and ultimately a lover’s betrayal – followed by her untimely
death. Now a ghost, Leiyin must make
amends to earn entry to the afterlife.
But when her young daughter faces a dangerous future, Leiyin has to make
a heart-wrenching choice.
My Review:
Three Souls is a rare book which would
not only be a perfect book club pick, but is a page-turning, fantastic
read. This is a debut novel but you’d
never know it. Janie Chang writes like a
well-seasoned author.
Leiyin has passed
on at a young age and leaves behind a young daughter. She suddenly realizes that she is sitting in
the midst of her own funeral watching from above. Leiyin understands then that she has passed
on and is now a ghost.
Unfortunately, she
has been denied admittance to the afterlife because she has committed some
wrongs during her lifetime and must somehow correct these wrongs before she can
move on. Leiyin is accompanied by her
three souls: her romantic yin soul, her very wise hun soul, and her scholarly
yang soul. The three souls, along with
Leiyin must figure out how she can right the wrongs or they’ll all be trapped
in nothingness for eternity.
It was the very
moment that the priest had said the last prayer and sealed her coffin closed
that she woke up and floated upward in a slow moving drift of incense
smoke. She stopped and was sitting in
the rafter looking down at the attendees of her funeral.
The odd thing was
that she had knowledge but no memories of her life.
As she peered
down, she saw on the altar a wooden tablet gleaming with gold-painted
characters that were actually carved right into the surface. What was printed into the tablet said: “Song
Leiyin. Beloved Wife. Dutiful Daughter. She recognized that is was indeed her
name.
The first time she
noticed her three souls was when the priest had concluded his service. It was at that moment she saw the three
bright sparks moving in the air net to her. The souls were small, red as paint,
but knew inherently that they couldn’t be seen by the attendees of her funeral.
Leiyin notice a
little girl dressed in white mourning robes with red rimmed eyes. Obviously this young one had been
weeping. She suddenly recognized that
this child was her daughter, Weilan. So
startled at seeing her, Leiyin floated down beside the child and wrapped her in
her arms, but she could not feel Weilan.
The only thing she could do to comfort herself was to repeat the pet
names she had called her daughter during her life.
The three souls
then began chatting that Leiyin needed to understand why she was being held
back from her afterlife and left floating, invisible, to everyone in the real
world. Her yang soul spoke up and said
Leiyan was still here because: “…she was responsible for a great wrong” that
she needed to right.
Leiyin,
immediately told her three souls that she didn’t remember anything about
committing a great wrong and was certain she had not been any type of criminal during
her lifetime.
The three souls
then explained that she would relive her memories and only then would she
understand her detention in this earthly realm, and what she must do to correct
it. It was extremely important that
Leiyan understand the damage she had done in her life. Only if she attained that goal would she
ascend to her afterlife, along with her three souls. If she failed, she’d be stuck as a hungry
ghost in between worlds forever. The
three souls could not move on either without Leiyan.
The souls decided
they should begin showing Leiyan her earthly life beginning when she was a
teenager and attending a party. Suddenly
she finds herself standing “on a street lined with sycamore trees and high,
whitewashed walls.” In that moment she
realizes that she is that girl. Leiyan
then knew “everything about my life before that moment”, but knew nothing about
what was to come.
The story of
Leiyan’s life, as she observes, begins in Changchow, China in 1938.
I absolutely
cannot say enough about this book. If I
could rate it at 100 stars, I would!!
Don’t miss out on this superbly crafted story. Thank you Ms. Chang for some of the best
reading I’ve done in a while.
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