The Phoenix Pencil Company



Rating: 3.75



A complex and moving fantasy tale told from two perspectives Monica and her grandmother Wong Yun around the family’s secret of being a Reformer, someone who can tell you the secrets written of a pencil.



Wong Yun focuses on the past, her childhood in Shanghai during the second world war, and the choices she and her family needed to make to survive, and Monica who feels so alone in her world apart from her grandparents and finding out that her grandmother is ill. The connection between the two characters is beautiful, and the highlighting of how they long to communicate with each other and truly understand each other is a key theme throughout the book.



Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, and giving me the ability to lie in this beautiful world.

Magical and an onion style novel - one with so many layers, you never know what to expect but you do know there are going to be tears.

A really interesting premise and I learnt a lot about a period of history I didn't know about. Was paced a bit slowly for me.

A Reece Witherspoon Bookclub pick.

Monica is a student in New England, tied up in a project to find people and connect them online. Her beloved grandmother, Yun, fled from Shanghai and then Taiwan during WWII and then the early days of Chinese communist rule. Yun has a special power which comes down the generations. She can ‘reforge’ pencils to ‘download’ everything they have written - a potent power in war and often an unfortunate temptation to read what you shouldn’t.

Told over two timelines, Yun writes to her long estranged cousin in Shanghai, recounting the past. In Boston Monica worries about her ailing grandparents and uses her project to create and reconnect relationships.

This book is a very mixed bag. The historical timeline is interesting but told in an odd way - rather than reminiscing, Yun is recounting fact to her cousin who is part of the story for much of the time. Monica’s story is disjointed - a clunky love story and it often gets mired in the detail of her IT project.

The reforging of pencils is a clever plot device but is overused and unnecessarily detailed. In the acknowledgments the author says this started life as a short story. There wasn’t quite enough for a novel.

The book is well written but tries too hard to be clever by threading in themes - not least, everyone seems to have a hand in some method of commmunication. I enjoyed the character of Yun and her cousin Meng. Through a different method of telling their respective stories, I would have got much more out of the book.

Thanks to 4th Estate and Netgalley for an ARC.

A truly captivating read that held my attention from.page 1 and didn't let it go until the final page. Brilliant craftsmanship and enchanting world building are two stand out features.

This one went straight to my top for this year. Told from two different and alternating points of view, the one of the grandma and the one of the granddaughter, it was narrated absolutely beautifully and had the right mix of historical fiction, magical realism, emotional writing, mystery and likeable characters for it to be a 5 star reading.

Thank you NetGalley and Fourth Estate for this eCopy to review

The Phoenix Pencil Company centres on Monica Tsai, a reclusive college freshman and coder who’s more comfortable behind a screen than in a crowd. Her world shifts when a digital connection leads her to a mysterious pencil, one that unlocks a hidden chapter of her grandmother Yun’s past. Yun, now in her nineties and fading into memory loss, once worked at the Phoenix Pencil Company in wartime Shanghai. There, she and her cousin Meng discovered a family gift: the ability to “Reforge” pencils, drawing out the memories written with them.

As Monica digs deeper, she uncovers a legacy of storytelling, survival, and betrayal. Yun and Meng’s gift didn’t go unnoticed, soon, they were entangled in espionage, forced to weaponize their magic to stay alive. The novel weaves Monica’s digital-age sleuthing with Yun’s wartime journals, creating a dual narrative that spans continents and generations.

Whilst the concept is beautifully original, and King’s prose has a quiet elegance, I found that the story dragged and became a bit technical in places.

An engaging, elegant and intriguing read that spans generations, borders and history. I did just want to pick up Monica and either hug her or give her a shake at different points throughout the story, but when she finally burns a particular bridge I definitely gave a cheer! Besides learning a lot about a period of history where the focus is usually on what happened in the West, at least from what I remember of school, it also raises a lot of interesting questions about the different ways in which we learn about people, how we come to know them. There's a really cool parallel the author draws between connections made an age where lives are lived and shared online, and those made by pouring the self into the written word. I also love that the story essentially starts and finishes in the same place. All in all a very neat read. Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC!

The Phoenix Pencil Company follows Monica Tsai and her grandmother. Monica codes for a program online that connects people. Monica wants to track down her grandmothers long lost cousin Meng and ends up connecting with a young woman who gives her a single pencil. Monica’s grandmother Yun lived in China during WWII when Japan was occupying parts of China. Yun and Meng could reclaim stories from pencils and this led them to a path of espionage. Unfortunately Yun is losing her memory and that means she needs to share her past with Monica to keep it alive.

This was okay. I liked the start and this is a very unique and intriguing story. I preferred following Yun’s story over Monica’s simply because I enjoyed reading about the experience of being in an occupied place and the need for resistance. That said the writing of this felt a bit weak to me and I struggled to be engrossed in the story. Overall this was enjoyable and unique but I do think the writing could have been stronger.

The Phoenix Pencil Company is a historical fiction with magical realism elements where we see the granddaughter Monica trying to discover her grandmother's story from the time when a war was going on in Shanghai. Loved the idea of plot, it was interesting and kinda unique.

A touching magic realism story that flows between two timelines about the sacrifices one makes for family and survival, especially if one is a woman. Reunions, betrayals, loss, and closure constantly spin around each other in this intimate story following Monica Tsai and her maternal grand-relations. It brilliantly explores and questions the past and present's way of communicating, the privacy and anonymity one is able to have, and the evolving norms surrounding familial roles and career.

Thanks to Netgalley and 4th Estate and William Collins | Fourth Estate for providing me with the e-ARC/DRC in exchange for an honest review

They say the higher the expectations, the more painful the fall, and perhaps for me this book was the perfect representation for it.

I was most certain that I’d love this reading. It talks about women during war using fantasy elements to rebel against it and survive while trying to find their own place and connections within their world. So what could go wrong? Well, the one thing I wasn’t expecting this book to miss: emotion and sensibility.

It was very clear for me from the start that the author has very raw prose. There is no poetry, barely to no subtext and all the character’s emotions are so grounded into the facts of the story that there’s no space for deep sadness, blazing anger or bubbling happiness. This wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t the context of this book. However, I had the feeling I was reading a History book instead of a Story one where the characters already went through all that and you just need me to know and learn the facts and not to make me feel them.

There is war and despite most of the characters being women, human beings who suffered the most through it, there’s no stakes. We know there’s dangers when they involve themselves in “espionage” but they don’t suffer any consequences from it. We know it’s risky, they say it’s risky, and this is it, just tell and no showing. There’s a narrative shield around each and every one of the characters and nothing - neither really bad or really good - happens. The whole mild range of emotions made me feel bored pretty fast. I waited for something amazing or catastrophic to happen but I got nothing.

Maybe it’s the author’s prose that didn’t match with my taste or maybe she’s still trying to find her voice as a debut author, but the over-descriptions of technology swallowed the magic of the tale instead of embracing it. I lost absolute interest in it when there were so many sensitive subjects to be developed but there was no available emotion for them, just empty words and fact explanations.

Don’t get me wrong, I really loved the idea for this book and the whole concept of it, so I kept going with the hope that eventually it’d get better, but it didn’t work out for me, unfortunately. However, I really want to read more of this author in the future, for I have the feeling that once her writing matures enough she’ll be an amazing author to read.

The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King, once again we have a book with the modern day and a historical perspective and modern day Monica goes to Swarthmore and is working on a computer program called embers. The program collects information such as social post and other tidbits and the professor potentially wants it to become a dating app of sorts. historically we get the story of Yune her grandmother living in Singapore in the international village right before World War II. Her mom owns the Phoenix pencil company and their family has a special ability to find out what owners of the pencil have written. Monica threw her professors program finds her grandmother Yune’s long lost cousin who she grew up with like a sister but the cousin still lives in Singapore. This is how Monica also finds Louise. She is a Princeton student who Monica is immediately smitten with. when Monica comes home for her grandmother‘s 91st birthday she learned some devastating news that will not only alter her immediate future but also changes a lot of of her long distant plans. Throughout the book as we learn each woman’s story whether in the 1930s or modern day the one thing that stands out is the fearless love they have for their family and how they’re superpower may not only move mountains but shorten distances. Yune and Monica are face with decisions they’ll have to make for the love of their family I always find it amazing how when hearing about something one finds distasteful but when knowing the backstory totally seems understandable. I did find it odd that at no point did Monica and Louise discuss their sexuality and although I found this a very interesting book with meaningful subject matter I did find the romance weird both women will be betrayed and of course like in most books if there’s a white character he will always turn out to be evil or at least dishonest and Miss King definitely didn’t disappoint on that note. Still thought the book was interesting and I would definitely recommend it to those like me who love reading Asian narratives or just an all-around great read.#NetGalley, #TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview,#AllisonKing, #ThePhoenixPencilCompany,

What an absolutely delightful read! I read an eARC of this book on NetGalley so thank you to the author and the publisher.

This was such a beautiful, sad novel. It’s told in alternating perspectives. We have Monica, who is writing a journal in modern day and we are interspersed with a letter her grandmother is writing. Monica is dealing with her grandmother’s deteriorating memory, having to take a break from college to care for her. Alongside, her grandmother is trying to write a letter to a long lost friend while she still can remember the events she needs to recount. Monica is also adjusting to a new presence in her life and the feelings this evokes and a challenging decision between career and education.

This story is generally about identity and memory. But there is an angle of magical realism that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Monica’s family have a unique method of communication involving pencils, that can be very useful but is also something that nefarious characters would seek to exploit for their own agenda. We meet Monica’s grandmother as a girl in Shanghai and the perils her family experiences. There’s a lot of sadness and suffering in this story, which makes her grandmother reluctant to share her experience, except to those who have a relevant need to know.

This was such a compelling read, we see what people will do when their choices are limited, when they are backed into a corner. We rage against people who exploit others, causing sickness and suffering. There’s a really strong thread of female companionship within this book and female bonds are core to this story, between cousins, between sisters, between mothers and daughters and nieces and aunts, between grandmothers and granddaughters, and between female friendship and beyond. It’s really beautiful.

This was a fascinating, brilliantly written novel that presents the past and present in perfect tandem, asking important questions around memory and identity.