Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Rating: 4.7/5

I’m not usually a sentimental reader, preferring high-stakes scenes of epic clashes and intricate magic systems intertwined with politics… this book is not like that. This book was like burnt caramel, bitter and heavy, yet with a lingering sweetness and mellow nostalgia, one that transported me into its pages.

Elizabeth Lim is known for her beautiful renderings of Chinese fairytales, and I had read some of her pieces before, but none of them have emotionally resonated with me as much as this novel. Far more than just a pretty retelling of a classical fairytale, this breathed life, and all the emotions and pain that come with it, into the endlessly rehashed Cinderella tale (or more accurately, Yeh Shen 叶限）.

We follow a dual POV structure, flashing back and forth between Helen (Yut Ying) and Marigold, her daughter, as they traverse life and historical tides of war across the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and the US. Although the magic was relatively simple, it added the perfect touch of whimsy to the tale, and the characters were beautifully developed.

I fear if I continue to wax lyrical, I will start giving spoilers, but overall I would like to highly recommend this poignant novel to all those who wish, as I did, to escape into the nostalgia of fairytales for a little while.

I didn’t know a book could break my heart so quietly… and then put it back together so gently. 💔✨😭

Fishbone Cinderella is haunting, emotional, and achingly beautiful — and Elizabeth Lim’s adult debut is nothing short of stunning. This story feels more grounded, more raw, and more deeply reflective, while still carrying the lyrical magic I’ve come to love from her writing. Once again, she reached straight into my chest, shattered my heart, and somehow left me feeling whole by the final page. 🫶💫

This isn’t just a Cinderella retelling. It’s a story about mothers and daughters, about generational wounds, sacrifice, survival, and a mother’s love that endures through time, distance, and heartbreak. 👩‍👧❤️ The magic is subtle but powerful, woven so naturally into the story that it feels like a quiet inheritance rather than something loud or showy. ✨🐟

I loved how unflinchingly emotional this book was. It doesn’t shy away from grief, loss, or regret — yet it never feels hopeless. There is something profoundly moving about the way a mother’s love persists, even when life is cruel, even when choices are impossible, even when words are left unsaid. More than once, I had to pause just to sit with my feelings. 😭

The historical backdrop adds so much depth, grounding the story in reality while making the moments of magic feel even more precious. Every character felt painfully human — flawed, loving, stubborn, and doing the best they can with what they’re given. 🤍

This book shattered me… but it also picked up all my broken pieces in the end. ❤️‍🩹✨
It reminded me that healing doesn’t erase pain — it grows around it, carried by love that refuses to fade.

I absolutely loved this book (as I do with all of Elizabeth Lim’s stories), and Fishbone Cinderella will stay with me for a long, long time. 🥹📖💫

Elizabeth Lim never misses.

Every book of hers is perfect and this one is no different.

Such a beautiful, emotional read. I’ve felt so connected to every book of hers I’ve read, they’re so flawlessly written and take you into the world easily.

This might just be my favourite so far! I’m so glad I got to read it early, and I will 1000% recommend it to anyone and everyone!

This is definitely a five Star book. And as usual Elisabeth Lim does not disappoint!

So, first of all, many thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of *Fishbone Cinderella*.
I’m so glad to have had the opportunity to read this wonderful book in advance. Ever since Six Crimson Cranes and its sequels, I’ve been a huge fan of Elisabeth Lim. This time, she’s tackled a completely different subject. She’s written about the story of a young Chinese woman during the turmoil of the war years in the middle of the last century and how she eventually emigrated to the USA.

The story is so heart-wrenching that at times I simply couldn’t bring myself to read on, so saddened was I by the many challenges and tragic events she had to face.

A truly wonderful book, and somehow I hope there might be more stories to come about the fates of the individual characters.

This was such a good read.The writing style was beautiful, and I loved how it explored generational curses, womanhood, and the historical aspects of the story. It was engaging through and through.

thank you to netgalley and hodder books for sending me the arc for fishbone cinderella. as someone who was born and raised in Hong Kong, reading a book about the place’s landmarks and cuisine gave a sense of nostalgia and a longing for my childhood in a weird way (even though i lived in hk long after the book’s setting). i had never read about generational trauma (within asian families) in a fantastical setting before so I was concerned whether the unrealistic nature of the characters’ powers would dilute the nuances of these feelings. luckily, elizabeth lim proved me wrong. the sense of awe and devastation that i felt when reading this book. i can’t even put it into words because it simply does not do it justice.

from start to finish, i felt a rollercoaster of emotions - the childhood innocence that yat ying felt in the beginning, the disillusion when she became helen, the hope that came with the explanation of marigold’s background (+ her relationship with kenji hello!!! I NEED ENDLESS EDITS OF THEM ON MY TABLE ONCE THE BOOK GETS PUBLISHED PLS AND THANK YOU)… fishbone cinderella was truly a masterpiece in its execution and i absolutely loved the message/ the book’s ending of needing to acknowledge the hurt to break free from your past. the book manages an almost impossible feat that is hard to achieve nowadays in fiction - having an interesting plot while having satisfying character development. i loved how all the feelings of the characters in this book are depicted in a raw and unflinching way. don’t get me wrong - you will get annoyed at certain points of the story at them but you will love them nonetheless bc of how human their flaws are and that is what i love about fishbone cinderella most of all. it does not shy away from the ugly and beautiful parts of human emotion and no one is 100% a villain (even that chop stepmother i understand you but respectfully fawk u).

in dark times like this, the book’s message is incredibly powerful - love and hope are what drive us humans and bring us together. growing up with mommy issues (help), i related a LOT to marigold and yat ying’s tumultuous relationship and i am so glad this book exceeded my expectations and centred love around familial relationships aside from romantic relationships.

have i mentioned how much i love marigold and kenji? (yes but i won’t shut up about them BYE THEY ARE SO DEAR TO ME they give me shirbert vibes if ykyk) anyways hehe I can’t believe this is my FIRST elizabeth lim book and this is her adult debut HELLO??? IS SHE INSANE. i love you queen needless to say i am a huge elizabeth lim fan after this and will be purchasing the physical copy of this book once it gets published.

i think this is my favourite arc ever and my first 5-star read for a fictional book this year. truly flawless. no notes.

if you are finding one book to read this year, let it be fishbone cinderella. i am serious. if this book has no fans, i’m dead.

Elizabeth Lim's "Fishbone Cinderella" is an emotional page turner, following Yut Ying and her painful journey as she struggles to survive in war-torn China, all whilst living with the curse that impacts each generation of her family.

Fishbone Cinderella is a story of loss, betrayal, trauma and survival. With mentions of miscarriage, neglect, poison and a boatload of generational trauma, this is not a light read in the slightest. However, the expertly written characters, the amazing use of multiple timelines and the gorgeous correlation with the ‘Chinese Cinderella’ tale of Yeh Shen will keep you transfixed: crashing in disappointment at Ying’s actions whilst still fearing for her future.

This is Lim’s debut into adult fiction and so is a step away from the YA fantasy of Spin the Dawn or Six Crimson Cranes. However, the flow into historical fairytale feels so personal that, if you know Lim as an author, this will be the easiest transition ever.
With heartbreak, magic and a happy ever after to make you weep, Fishbone Cinderella was exactly what we have come to expect from Elizabeth Lim.
This is the perfect grown-up fairytale in my opinion and my favourite read of the year so far.

I went into Fishbone Cinderella expecting the comfort of a classic retelling, but I emerged feeling like I’d lived through an entire lifetime—or rather, two. What started as a familiar premise quickly blossomed into something so much more ambitious than I ever anticipated. The way Elizabeth Lim expands the scope of this story to span two generations was such a brilliant subversion of the fairy tale trope; it transformed what could have been a simple "once upon a time" into a complex, breathing family history that felt both epic and intimate.

The author handles the sensitive themes of the book with incredible grace, particularly the heavy mantle of generational trauma. Seeing how the characters navigated the shadows of their ancestors' choices felt so raw and honest, giving the story a depth you don't usually find in a standard retelling.

There is a haunting, heartwrenching beauty to the prose that caught me completely off guard, and I’ll be honest—I spent a good portion of the final chapters absolutely sobbing. It’s a stunning, poetic exploration of the bones we carry and the magic it takes to heal them. If you’re looking for a book that will move you to tears and leave you thinking about it for days, this is the one. Just make sure you have a box of tissues nearby.

Absolutely stunning, incredible, gorgeous from the very beginning to the very end. I enjoyed Lim's YA work, but her adult debut is on a whole other level. It's historical fiction blended with fantasy and bits of a retelling, and I was glued to it. This is one of those books that make you stay up way too late despite having a long work day ahead of you because it's just so good you can't put it down.

It's a very emotional read that centers a girl whose family is thrust into sino-japanese war, who has to survive the horrors of it and its aftermath, who has to deal with loss and grief and injustice all her life - and who also just so happens to have the ability to disappear. I felt for Yut Ying/Helen every moment of the book. Her story intertwines with that of her daughter Marigold decades later, and while Marigold is mostly part of the story's framework at first, her own story and her mother's come together in such a perfectly written way that it elevates the whole narrative even more. Marigold, too, has a strange power, just like her mother, just like her grandmother, and it might all come down to a mysterious family curse.

The whole book is masterfully crafted and gorgeously written. The characters and the often complicated relationships are complex and intriguing, the emotions are raw and felt and earned, the thematic depth is perfectly balanced with a well-paced narrative and I genuinely cried at some points in the story. I cannot recommend this more and I really, really hope Lim continues writing adult literature somewhere between literary and fantasy fiction. Already a favourite of this year.

This was ne of my most anticipated releases of the year to begin with and now I'm even more excited for it. I love the way Elizabeth Lim writes; it is so vivid and you can feel that in every aspect of the worlds she builds in her novels. Furthermore, I feel that Fishbone Cinderella really brings her skills as a writer to the spotlight as it's her first adult novel and simultaneously her first work not set in her fictional universe Lor'yan, but in the reaal world. Thus, there is no previous framework to rely on but everything is built from the ground up. And Lim absolutely does magnificent work in that aspect.

Fishbone Cinderella's multiple timelines weave you in very naturally: you know where the story leads, but you also know there is so much you don't know and moreover, the story is not over at all. And well, you just need to know everything. The magic system, if it can even be called that, of the novel is so intricate and subtle that as a reader, you need to know more and more of it until it feels real (but all of this is donee in the best way possible). Yet, by the time you've read the whole novel, it really does all feel so real like it actually happened in our world, no matter the impossibility. And I loved how the fairytale aspects tied into "real life", as I allways do, to be honest.

When it comes to thee characters, Lim crafts them carefully and vividly, as usual. They are all complex and humane, so you can't help but root for everyone even when the family dynamics clash and you feel mad in behalf of a character, still, you feel for the other side as well. In this, Lim really excels and I truly loved readinf and further understanding the complicated family relationships and secrets. Furthermore, every character and relationship is given enough time to develop so no one feels overshadowed and the family drama feels balanced with the magic, too.

To conclude, I absolutely loved this and can't wait to read the final, published novel. And, to no surprise, I will keep up with Lim's work in the future and am particularly curious where she goes with her adult prose next, granted she continues writting in this age category.


Thank you, Hodder & Stoughton | Hodderscape & NetGalley, for providing me with the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions and views expressed are my own.

This felt like reading a fairy tale wrapped in the aftermath of war, quiet, layered, and heavier than it first appears.

The story weaves Chinese folklore and myth into the reality of life during and after the Second World War, and that blend works beautifully. Tradition, superstition, and generational storytelling sit right next to trauma, loss, and survival. It creates this rich, almost dreamlike atmosphere but one that never lets you forget how much was taken from these people. Childhoods, futures, entire identities… you feel that loss in every chapter.

What stayed with me most is how the story moves through generations of women.

We follow Yut Ying, later Helen, and her daughter Marigold, with glimpses reaching even further back. Their lives are tied together by a curse that manifests differently in each generation, and slowly, piece by piece, you start to understand it. That unfolding mystery is subtle, but compelling.

The characters are layered, even the side ones. Everyone feels shaped by their circumstances, by tradition, by expectations they didn’t choose. And that’s also where the book hurt the most for me, especially when it comes to the women. The weight of tradition, the limits placed on their choices… it’s frustrating, because it feels so inescapable.

The pacing sits somewhere in the middle: not rushed, not dragging. You can step away and return easily, but emotionally, it’s not a light read. There’s a constant heaviness running through it. This isn’t a story filled with joy. It’s one shaped by endurance.

The ending - my favourite part.

It brings everything full circle in a way that feels earned. The connection back to the goldfish tale, that thread of folklore running through the entire story, lands beautifully. As someone who grew up with fairy tales, I loved seeing a different cultural version of something so familiar, woven into something deeper and more complex.

Not an easy or light read.
But a thoughtful, layered story that stays with you.

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

Such a brilliant story. It spans generations and you really get to know the central characters. Inspired by a fairytale but equally a chronicle of a family in China, Hong Kong, the USA from world war 2 to the late twentieth century.
The story has some real villains and satisfying resolutions to storylines. The writing is beautiful.

This book felt so realistic even tho it has the magical realism aspect to it. The writing was so beautiful and immersive! I felt like as I was a part of the story and was following along with the characters. This for me is one of the best feelings when reading books. I forget that the book is not real life.

Some parts of the book is set around 1940 when the war between China and Japan was ongoing. It was so hardbreaking to read about how the family we are following in China experiensed living under this war. We also dive into themes of how difficult it was to be a girl/woman at this time. How women where the property of their husband, they where not supposed to work, only bear children, etc. It makes one really appreciate how lucky some of us are to this day.

The ending for this story wraps up perfectly. We get somewhat of an happy ending and I got answears to the questions I had through the story. The magical aspect with the curse set upon the women in this family was so good and very simple, which I really loved. It was a small part of the story but at the same time so important!

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read and review this! I love Elizabeth Lim's work and this was so different from anything else I've read by her. This had a historical edge that I hadn't been expecting. I loved the dual timeline, exploring Helen's h=life throughout any different phases as she struggled with her curse, and getting to know Marigold in the present day timeline. This was fantastic

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I've read almost all of Elizabeth Lim's books thus far so I was naturally very excited about this one too. And whilst it is dramatically different than her previous novels, it is no less magical in its content and the atmosphere it weaves.

This novel is nothing short of beautiful, but equally unafraid of showcasing the broken, jagged edges of a life lived. Lim expertly crafts the tales of these two women and how their lives have been shaped by war, prejudice, finances and so much more, all whilst adding a touch of magic to it all.

A truly stunning novel and an absolute pleasure to read, even as it broke my heart time and time again, only to heal it once more too.

Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim is an incredible read. It manages to feel like a book nobody had even done before despite being based off a fairly common fairytale (Cinderella obviously).

It was a book that leaves you feeling content when finishing it, a great stand-alone book.

The characters are very complex and great to read, following both our FMC and her daughter’s POV jumping back and forth between time. It was very easy to keep track of where we were in the story and which POV we were reading from.

Overall, I absolutely adored this book and I recommend to anybody looking for a good quick read. 5/5

I had never read a book by Elizabeth Lim before, but after seeing only glowing reviews from my friends about Fishbone Cinderella, I had a feeling her adult debut would be the perfect place to start exploring her bibliography. I’m so glad NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton lgave me the opportunity to follow my instinct.

Fishbone Cinderella is a beautiful multi-generational story that explores themes of love, war, history, generational trauma, immigration, loss, and hope, all woven together with touches of magical realism and fantasy.

The story follows two women: a mother, Ha Yut Ying, and her daughter, Marigold.
We follow Ha Yut Ying in 1940s China, where, while hiding from Japanese soldiers during the war, she discovers that she can turn invisible. After the war, she travels to Hong Kong to live with her father and his second wife, leaving her mother behind. She arrives full of dreams and hope, only to realize that reality might not be what it seems, and that forbidden love can easily turn into heartbreak.

Marigold grows up in 1960s San Francisco. An overachiever with dreams of becoming a doctor, she also possesses a gift for uncovering secrets. Yet the mystery she longs to solve most is her mother herself. She knows very little about Helen’s life in Hong Kong and begins to notice that her mother is slowly vanishing. To save her, Marigold must uncover the truth about her family and the curse that follows some of the women in it.

Fishbone Cinderella was everything I hoped it would be and more. I cried countless times while reading this book. It is beautifully written, deeply emotional, and layered with so much depth and nuance. The story makes you care profoundly about its characters while reminding you that every choice we make can have consequences far beyond what we can imagine.

The more you learn about each protagonist, the more compassion you feel for them, and the more you wish they could show themselves that same compassion. As the daughter of immigrants who had to flee war, I related deeply to Marigold. So much of our own journey becomes an attempt to understand both the joys and the traumas that shaped our parents before us.

It is truly special to recognize, while reading, that a story will leave a lasting mark on your soul, and I know Fishbone Cinderella will stay with me forever. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone, and I cannot wait for more readers to fall in love with it as much as I did. My only advice is to keep a box of tissues nearby.

I cannot thank NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton enough for the incredible opportunity to read an eARC of this stunning novel. It may have been my first book by Elizabeth Lim, but it certainly will not be my last.

Thank you for the ARC! This book was truly a masterpiece. I love Elizabeth Lim's writing. The story was beautiful. The characters were incredibly well written. Helen's character especially—I loved her character with all her strengths and flaws. I went through every emotion with this book; I fell in love with it. It went beyond my expectations and has become a favorite of mine.

I adore Elizabeth Lim and her utterly brilliant imagination. I've loved all her YA books and was so excited when I heard about her adult fantast debut. I'm happy to announce that I was not disappointed.

It's such a wonderful heartfelt story about happiness and sorrow, wins and losses. It's a story about life in every sense of the word. While it deals with a lot of hard topics and you can't help but feel everything the characters go through, there's always this thread of hope that's always a constant in Elizabeth Lim's books. A thread that makes you feel all warm and happy inside when you read.

I have to admit that I found the book a bit slow to begin with. Still good enough that I wanted to continue reading though. However, by the time I was half-way through, I was completely immersed in the story and didn't want to put the book down.

Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim is such a beautiful story but at the same time a sad story but one that becomes beautiful with the way the characters overcome tragedies. It's a story that spans generations and shows the consequences of certain decisions and how we can live with them. I loved the characters and the way they were written and described.

This was a fairly slow burning read, but one that hit me way harder than I expected it to by the end of it!

Fishbone Cinderella is a dual POV, multiple timeline book following Yut Ying's past as she navigates a generational curse that only affects the women in her family, and her daughter, Marigold, in the future who is determined to find answers to her own mysterious ailment whilst trying to repair the relationship with her mother.

The book focuses a lot on female relationships and they're handled in such a beautiful and heart wrenching way. From a jealous step-mother, to sisters learning to love one another, to strained mother-daughter relationships, each of them is a victim of their own unfortunate circumstances. Despite the awful ways Yut Ying is treated at times, you really can't help but feel some form of pity for each character once you begin to understand that they are just trying to survive in a time where women had such little power over their own lives.

Yut Ying's story was heart breaking on so many levels. From the moment she flees to Hong Kong to escape the war with the Japanese, reluctantly leaving her mother, to meeting her first love totally by chance, we watch as the people she cares for most fail her one after another. Her hopes and dreams are slowly stripped away, until she's left jaded and focusing solely on what she can do to survive and reunite with her mother. Yut Ying was such a deeply complicated character, and despite her hopes for the future fizzling out, she never truly gives up and is determined to give her daughters a better life than she ever had.

One of my favourite things about Elizabeth Lim's writing is the way she weaves fairytales and folklore into the lives and histories of her characters. This is a spin on the Chinese version of Cinderella - Yeh-Shen - and it was so perfectly fitting for the setting and the struggles that Yut Ying experiences and I really enjoyed her take on it.

Fishbone Cinderella is by no means a happy read, but it's a story that's going to make you really feel something deep in your bones!

Thank you so much for the ARC!

4.5 stars!

Fishbone Cinderella is absolutely beautiful, brilliant, and heartbreaking. I've loved everything I've read by Elizabeth Lim, but this book is very different from what she usually writes, and I loved it just the same, if not even more. From about the halfway point onward, I was crying on and off all the way to the end.

I honestly don't know how to put into words how much I loved this book. It wasn't what I expected when I picked it up, but it ended up being so much more. I read nearly half of it in a single day because I was completely gripped by the story and couldn't stop thinking about it whenever I put it down.

At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about the dual POVs and different timelines, but I ended up loving that aspect of the story. I was initially more invested in Yut Ying's perspective since that's where most of the story takes place in the beginning, but once we spent more time in Marigold's timeline, I became just as attached to her story. Both perspectives felt equally important, and together they created something incredibly emotional and powerful.

While there is romance in this book, and it was SO good, the heart of the story is really the mother daughter relationships. They were beautifully written, realistic, messy, and deeply complex. No one in this book is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, carries regrets, and does the best they can with the circumstances they're given (well, mostly everyone). That made the characters feel incredibly human and easy to connect with. There were so many moments that completely ripped my heart out, but also so many that made me smile. Following Yut Ying from her childhood during war and the Japanese invasion, to her life with her father and stepmother, and later watching her build a new life for herself, was incredibly moving. It felt like I was watching her grow up, struggle, love, and find her place in the world. I felt so connected to her, and once we got more of Marigold's perspective, I felt equally invested in her journey.

I wish we had gotten a little more at the end. There were still a few questions left unanswered, although I believe that was very much intentional on the author's part. Even so, it was a beautiful ending that I enjoyed so much and one that felt fitting for the story being told.

Overall, this was a stunning and deeply emotional novel that completely exceeded my expectations. I already know I'll be thinking about these characters and their stories for a long time.

Wow what a beautiful story! Hope, first love, loss, growing up, generational trauma, Asian history, fairytale retelling, and being strong in the face of adversity. There's just so many things I love about this story!

I have several of Elizabeth Lim's YA books on my shelf, and as soon as this Fishbone Cinderella is published it is joining them as the first adult novel. The tone is more sophisticated, but the prose and descriptions is as wonderful as ever.

Lim is a great storyteller and her weaving the much beloved fairytale of Cinderella into an Asian version (I am unaware if the story contained in this novel exists in real life) with the harsh reality of life.

There are two timelines running side by side throughout this novel. Ha Yut Ying's life growing up, all her hardships growing up in the Guangdong province during WWII and the Japanese soldiers terrorising the local population, and her daughter, Marigold. Both are strong characters that I absolutely adore!

After the end of the war Yut Ying is sent to live with her father and his new wife in Hong Kong. We follow her as she grows up in a world very unlike the one she knew. Her life takes several turns, some of which made my cry, and intertwined is the curse of her bloodline that the daughters inherit variations of a curse. It is so well done I can only bow to Lim and her mastery in wordsmithing is superb.

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

This was a riveting historical novel with elements of magical realism. We follow a young girl, from hardship in her childhood, to being sent to her father’s family in Hong Kong to stories in the USA. Interspersed with perspectives from Marigold, trying to get her mother through a plane journey.

The magical realism was done so subtly and cleverly. It was thrilling when we learn the root cause late on in the book. Initially we learn the main character disappears sometimes, her invisibility helping her when she needs to stay unseen, but also a problem when it happens when she doesn’t want it to.

This is frequently a hard read emotionally as the characters go through some harrowing events. The historical storyline starts in war time and we see characters suffering. There’s later on family cruelty and exploitation. Our characters go through a lot. Even the later, more modern characters still are harmed by their families in different ways.

There’s some lovely details to this book, the love of cooking, the Cinderella connections, the girl in the dress. It’s a really well-written, engaging historical novel that manages to do something quite fresh and exciting with its magic and fairytale connections, without veering too far into fantasy.

I went into this story blind and it definitely exceeded my expectations. Following the story of three generations of women spanning China, Hong Kong and America I was immediately hooked.

It offered a real insight into Japanese colonisation and the impact of being a second generation immigrant in America.

The suffering, cruelty and resilience was compelling and the splash of magical realism told its own story of cultural and generational barriers in a gentle but unique way.

The characters were engaging, the pacing was spot on and not a word was wasted.

Thank you NetGalley for my ARC which I received in exchange for the above honest review.

I cried like a baby. This is so touching, I felt every emotion under the sun.

Yut Ying's story was incredibly moving, and her character development masterful. I loved her relationship with Lily, as well as the complexities of her other relationships.

Marigold's perspective was also really interesting, and the final convergence of both narratives felt really natural and beautiful.

This is one of those stories that leaves a mark with the reader; I would recommend this to anyone.

What a wonderful story, one I felt truly enthralled by.

The fantasy element is fairly light, the story focuses mainly on family - it's a generational saga with a fairylate twist, also encompassing real historical aspects.

I absolutely loved every page, but also found it utterly devastating at times. I cried three separate times, at various points and for different reasons. The dual point of view and timeline told the tale so beautifully.

Truly a tremendous reading experience.

Exquisite. Superb. Fantastic. Phenomenal. Beautiful. Unbeatable.

I could actually go on for days about this book. It was everything I wanted and more. Which shouldn’t surprise me when it comes to Lim.

I posted on my socials every day for nearly 3 weeks begging for a proof copy, I was unfortunately not picked but am extremely lucky to have read this early via Netgalley.

Lim has been, and always will be, an auto buy author for me. Her works are nothing short of spectacular. The way she works lore and myth into EVERY SINGLE BOOK just blows me away.

The whole concept of mother and daughter was beautiful. It was a turmoil of emotions with the dual POV, feeling the anguish and pain as they did. I just couldn’t. It will change you in ways you will never see coming. Lim is a mastermind.

With that being said, Lim is now going to be paying for my therapy because I just can’t get over the book in one piece. Okay? Awesome. Thanks.

I was almost tempted to click “I will not be giving feedback” and letting them know they owe me for my therapy 😂

I absolutely loved this book! It pulled on your heartstrings (legit, i got really sad at certain bits). The story made me very emotional as we got to see the life the mum lived and saw through the eyes of the daughter in the present. It was linked so well and the writing was so beautiful. I could just sit there and immerse myself into the story. To be honest, i didn't want to put the book down. Even though i have a few Elizabeth Lim books, this was the first one i read of hers (yes, i know. My tbr is out of hand) and it's left me with a great impression of the author. I cannot wait to get stuck into her other books. I want to talk about it in detail but i don't want to give anything away. Everyone needs to experience this book without any kind of spoilers because trust me, it's one you'll want to read. If you pick up a book in July, then let this be the one!

Thank you so much Hodder & Stoughton and netgalley for allowing me to read an e-arc of this book.

As someone who has read many variations of Ye Xian, I was naturally interested in this book. It genuinely reminded me of another book I'd read way back in 2007 - Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah, a memoir of sorts about a woman growing up post-war in a family situation like Helen in this book..

The changing of past to present was well written, and I was eager to finish the book to discover what happened next. A beautiful read, and I'd be interested in seeing this marketed as a YA or children's book as well.

Thanks to NetGalley, author Elizabeth Kim and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC.

My honest review is prepare tissues and read this on a day when you have nothing to do the next day. I stayed up until 2AM, eyes puffy and red from crying.

The way Elizabeth writes these characters just makes them so real, so easy to like them and want their happiness. Sadly, the time period and location was against an early happy life, events we all know from history books happening to them.

Saying goodbye to them was hard, especially as we didn't have a concrete proof of how their lives turned out further, but that's how life is. Sometimes, we have no idea how others end up living their life, we can only wish for their happiness. And these characters really need and deserve that happiness!

It's a retelling of Cinderella, but as history would tell it. Sometimes it takes generations for Cinderella to reach a happy ending, especially if it's during trying times. I see the curse mostly like generational trauma passed from mother to daughter, going down the line until someone is brave enough to see what it takes to break that trauma. It's an evolving trait, especially in parts that knew war, famine, death, mostly hell for women.

I love how Elizabeth writes it all, without overexplaining, evoking enough emotions to let us attach ourselves to her world, history, and characters. All her other books are just as good and I can't wait to see her next projects.

Fishbone Cinderella is such a beautiful, emotional story about family, motherhood, sacrifice, and healing. I loved the way it blends Chinese folklore, magical realism, and historical fiction into something that feels both magical and deeply human.
The relationships in this book are what truly stole my heart! The complicated, tender bonds between mothers and daughters, the love passed down through generations, and the sacrifices made for family were all written with so much care. Yut Ying especially broke my heart — her story is filled with so much pain, but also so much love and resilience.
I was already familiar with the story of Yeh Shen, so seeing how Elizabeth Lim reimagined and wove that inspiration throughout the novel was such a treat! A gorgeous, heartbreaking read that reminded me why I love stories about family, folklore, and the ways we carry each other through life.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC.

Rating 4.5 stars

Fishbone Cinderella is a book that will slowly and quietly break your heart the more you read.

Wrapped up in these pages are a story of historical fiction, magical realism, generation trauma, immigration, family sacrifice and so much loss.

Following Yut Ying across a split timeline alongside her daughter Marigold on her own timeline we see how patterns of abuse and behaviours can repeat even with the best of intentions.

I felt the emotions with Yut Ying, when she was angry, sad and betrayed I was right there with her wanting to fight for her. She goes through so much from such a young age and it was so heartbreaking to read.

The pacing did throw me off a tad which did affect my rating slightly. The beginning just took a little while to get going and there wasn’t as strong a direction with the story.

The magical realism and elements of the Cinderella story that were weaved in were a nice whimsical touch that didn’t overpower the rest of the story or take away from the main message.

fishbone cinderella is by far the most beautiful, most tender, and the most heartbreaking book i've read this year. i've always enjoyed elizabeth lim's works, but this one just blew it out of the park.

oh yut ying....experiencing her story from a child full of hope and kindness to a woman streaked with so much loss and suffering...i wish i could hug her. all the women in this book were so complex and interesting in their own ways, may they be villains or characters you root for. i also really appreciated marigold's pov, and how she experienced her own difficulties with yut ying as her mother. it's a novel of love and loss, of endurance and sacrifice, and ultimately, of mothers and daughters of all kinds.

this novel is many things, all of which i really enjoyed. i liked the historical aspect — it was so immersive, i felt as if i were right there with the characters themselves. i literally could not put this book down, there are over 400 pages and i devoured them in two days. i also really liked the magical realism aspect, and how it affected the lives and relationships the women in their family's line had with the people aroind them. the writing is so good, lyrical and touching that made me feel everything a thousand times more. this book made me tear up multiple times. i just wanted yut ying to catch a break 😭 if i could make one note, i wish that we had clearer endings for all the characters, but nevertheless, i liked how the book ended. this book is by far elizabeth lim's best work and i hope she ventures more towards novels in this genre.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

One of my all time favourite books is The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, so when I realised this book was also gonna be a historical family saga with magical realism I was SO excited. Add to that Elizabeth Lim being an absolute autobuy author for me and this was always going to be a 5 star read. Fishbone Cinderella is beautiful, heartbreaking and gently magical. It's like a Studio Ghibli classic, along the lines of When Marnie Was There or From Up on Poppy Hill. Multi-generational and spanning continents, this is a beautiful story of family, secrets, life in the diaspora, home, love and grief. I absolutely adored every single page and I cannot recommend it enough.

Beautifully heartbreaking--a powerful story of inter-generational trauma caused by war, colonialisation and oppression. This story follows three generations of chinese women on how they dealt with the pressure and expectations of being a woman in a culture that oppresses them. Elizebth Lim beautifully weaves magic into the story of seemingly common women and asks the big questions: how do we deal with "the curses" in our lives?

"After a lifetime of being misunderstood, of being trapped by traditions and expectation, after enduring two wars and suffering unbearable losses, Yuk Fong had accepted the fate she'd been dealt. She had accepted her curse.
Helen had accepted hers.
Now it was Marigold's turn."


The book starts with Marigold and her mother, Helen, fliying over to mainland China for a friend's wedding. Everything seems normal, but the author weaves curious anomalities into the story, that makes you want to know more. I love, and greatly appreciate, that Elizabeth Lim is centering her story about a historical event that has been much overlooked: the atrocities that the Japanese had done in WWII in China, starting with the Nanjing massacre. Nothing is shown explicitly, but the generational trauma the colonial oppression has caused is visible throughout the story and serves as the starting point.

"My brother said that the Japanese turned into goblins at night, and their favourite snack was little seven-year-old girls like me. They'd put me in a cage, fatten me up with peanuts and sticky rice, and slowly roast my body over a pit until my skin crackled.
Maybe it won't be so bad, I thought. At least they'll feed me first."


The story switches between different points in time (1930, 1945, 1980) and different POVs (mother, daughter) but Elizabeth Lim easily grounds the reader in each scene by giving vivid descriptions and centering the story around dialogue. I was surprised how quickly I flew through the book, because it was so easy to follow despite some scenes that were hard to swollow. I immediately connected to the characters (epsecially the women).

"Heat pricked the backs of my eyes. I thought of Yi Gor, whom I was risking my life to save. Would my brother become a mule for me? No. He'd trade me in a heartbeat for a piece of rock sugar."


As a PhD student of East Asian history, I commend the author on this excellent book. We need more stories focusing on intergenerational trauma, war atrocities, what cultural heritage means to us and especially how we, as women, navigate the expectations that come with that while also wanting to live our own best lives. The payoff at the end was worth it and I actually liked the twist. The soft magic added a nice layer and, for me personally, is the perfect metaphor on how children deal with trauma.

This was a book I wasn’t expecting to be an emotional read, but I’m so glad it was as it was sensitive, beautiful and poignantly written.

I loved following Yut Ying’s move to Hong Kong, how she tried to adapt to a new world and culture while dealing with her cruel stepmother and absent father over her childhood and adolescence. To add to that pressure Yut Ying lives with a curse that turns her invisible on command. Slowly but surely, this curse backfires and as the years go by, Yut Ying as she transitions to adulthood and moves away, she can no longer control the curse.

I loved the world building, the detailed story of life in China and America as the years go by from the 1940’s on and the deep prejudices and attitudes that simmer beneath the surface between the older and younger generations of Chinese and Japanese. The book shows how deep family ties are, especially between mothers and daughters and how decisions made decades ago can have long lasting consequences in the present day.

I found it a fascinating, beautiful and culturally and historically significant read. It had to be 5 out of 5 stars for me as I couldn’t put this book down, it was that engaging of a read. I would highly recommend!!

Thank you to Elizabeth Lim, Hodder and Stoughton and NetGalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I had a feeling going into this that I would be getting emotional…and well…I cried. I cried so hard when I got to the final few pages and finished reading this incredible piece of work that is Fishbone Cinderella. There are simply not enough words in the world to describe how breathtaking this beautiful book is. I have always been a fan of Elizabeth Lim’s writing but this book is truly her best work yet. Every sentence feels intentional, and everything the characters feel, you feel. The angst, the anguish, the pain, the hope…it all hits you in ways you don’t think.

This is the kind of book that you read, and you know almost immediately that you will never forget it. It will seep into your bones and become a part of your soul. Mother-daughter relationships are at the centre of this, and how they’re portrayed will make your heart ache. Intertwined with the historical context and knowing the atrocities that occurred during the Second World War, and the setting, a time where simply being a woman was a crime, made the story feel all the more real and poignant. Helen (Yut Ying)’s relationship with her own mother, with Sai Ma, and then subsequently with her daughter Marigold, offered moving portrayals of this very important relationship, perhaps the most important one in one’s life. The contrast (and similarities) between each is just so so incredibly done. I’m truly in awe.

The inclusion of Yeh Shen’s story feels like such a core part of this book, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t emphasise how crucial it is to both Yut Ying and Marigold’s stories, in similar and different ways. Despite that gap between them, that barrier, Yut Ying and Marigold had a very beautiful connection with each other. I felt deeply connected to them and this story, and it made me think of the kind of relationship I have with my own mother.

Unforgettable, evocative, haunting—I’m definitely not going to run out of adjectives to describe Fishbone Cinderella and how much I loved this. It’s a book I will always remember and always love, and I eagerly look forward to release day so that I can hold a copy in my hands.

I have a bad habit of stopping a book or a series a little before the end when I really love something, I guess it makes me feel like the story isn't over yet when I don't want something to end. I was completely engrossed in this book and never wanted the story to finish, it took me a few days to read the first 90% but a few weeks to read the last 10%.

This book is wonderfully told, both heartwarming and heartbreaking. It's set between 1940s Hong Kong and 1960s California, following three generations of a family suffering with a seemingly unbreakable curse. This is a multi-generational saga woven with folklore and fairytale.

When young Yut Ying is hiding from Japanese soldiers in her hometown of Guangdong, she escapes death by turning invisible. Her mother swears her to secrecy of this ability, giving her a golden bracelet with links shaped like fish bones for protection. Yut Ying carries her secret and her bracelet with her when she is moved away from her mother to Hong Kong after the war to live with her father and his second wife. Jealous of her looks and beautiful singing voice, Yut Ying's stepmother punishes her by having her work as a factory girl in the daytime and then as a servant at home. Decades later, Yut Ying is living in California with her husband and children, but she is struggling to move on from the past and having a harder and harder time with managing her invisibility and keeping it a secret. When her daughter Marigold witnesses her mother vanish into thin air one day, she becomes certain that she has to be the one to save her mother and to break the family curse once and for all.

This book broke my heart in tiny little pieces, and then put them back together again. It's a multi-generational tale of women, their strenght and their suffering, with a touch of magic and folklore. Their story is told through Helen's and Marigold's pov, weaving together the past and the present, tales of war, first love, and most of all, family. It was an emotional, at times bittersweet, read, but always engaging. I loved the magical realism woven into the story, but most of all I loved how real it felt, how we could see and understand the characters and their actions, even while not agreeing with them.
It is definitely a powerful book that touches on many themes (war, race, displacement, generational curses), but always in a poignant way.

Overall, one of the best books I've read so far this year and one I will warmly recommend!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Fishbone Cinderella. I found it a truly emotionally engaging read. I learned some new things about the Japanese occupation of China which had a huge impact on this family I loved the magical element which wove its way throughout adding a unique dimension without being far fetched. Telling the story from two points of view, Helens and Marigold's, smoothly crossed the generations and time
A truly great read

Initially drawn to the beautiful cover, I read the blurb and knew I had to read it.

The magical side of it was understated, and whilst an important part of the story, it did not drive it.

I loved the family saga elements, the main crux of the book, and hearing the story through mother and daughter. Both have unique voices who transported me to the era I was reading about. I especially loved hearing about Helen. From the early days of growing up in rural China, Hong Kong and then abroad, her story is sad in places but shows resilience, determination and some sass!

The location descriptions are vivid, and the sights, smells and sounds descriptors work really well.

I found myself reading late over a few evenings because I was so invested, it was a "one more chapter" experience for me.

A stunning adult fiction debut.

° ˖✧ 𝓣𝓛;𝓓𝓡 ✧˖°
A beautifully haunting historical fantasy perfect for readers looking for a fairytale curse spanning generations, a scorned mother that continues to protect her own, and a poetic writing style filled with emotional depth.

° ˖✧ 𝓡𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼 ✧˖°
4.5 ⭐
1 🌶️

° ˖✧ 𝓠𝓾𝓸𝓽𝓮𝓼 ✧˖°
"Don't grow up too fast, Ying. Life is more beautiful when you're a child."

"I'm Tommy. Tommy Yeung. You are...?"
I held up my cleaver. "I'm good with a knife."

"You learn a lot about people from what brings them shame."

"Give me all the books ever written, and my favourite line would still be the one between your lips, my favourite world the one where you exist next to me."

° ˖✧ 𝓢𝔂𝓷𝓸𝓹𝓼𝓲𝓼 𝓢𝓾𝓶𝓶𝓪𝓻𝔂 ✧˖°
When Ha Yut Ying is sent to live with her father and step-mother after the war, she’s forced to work in the family’s shoe factory. Walking to work, she bumps into the heir of a local soy milk tycoon and loses the bracelet her mother gifted.

° ˖✧ 𝓣𝓻𝓸𝓹𝓮𝓼 ✧˖°
📖 Fairytale Retelling
🐟 Family Curse
✨ Hidden Magic
🕰️ Dual Timeline
💕 Mother-Daughter POV
💥 Historical Wars
❤️‍🩹 Generational Trauma
🫶 Family Themes

° ˖✧ 𝓣𝓻𝓲𝓰𝓰𝓮𝓻 𝓦𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼 ✧˖°
💢 War Violence
🆘 Abuse/Neglect
💨 Abandonment
💀 Murder
🩸 Miscarriage
🪦 Grief
🗣️ Bigotry

° ˖✧ 𝓛𝓲𝓴𝓮𝓼 ✧˖°
+ Beautiful Prose
+ Vivid Setting
+ Compelling FMC
+ Steady Pacing
+ Emotional Depth
+ Pockets of Joy
+ Fairytale Themes
+ Haunting Atmosphere

° ˖✧ 𝓓𝓲𝓼𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮𝓼 ✧˖°
- Rushed Ending
- Second FMC less engaging
- Repeated Revelations
- Emotional Fatigue due to heavy content

° ˖✧ 𝓜𝔂 𝓣𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓼 ✧˖°
I was hesitant going into this read as I'd not read Asian Historical Fiction before, but I needn't have worried! Granted there were some terms/events I was unfamiliar with, but everything's explained enough to be read without bogging down the pacing.

I immediately connected with the voice of Helen/Yut Ying. After a brief scene from her daughter's POV and setting the mystery up, we're in Helen's childhood and remain there for some time. She lives in her small village with her two brothers, mother, and grandmother just as the Japanese have invaded China. The action is steady from the start and continues that way through most of the book.

In my mind, Helen is the star of this story. Yes, it's a book about the relationship between grandma, mother, and daughter with highlights of resilience, communication, and vulnerability. But it's also about the trauma Helen faced. The bitterness she embodies, even without trying. Helen is a woman scorned by the world, yet it only makes her grit her teeth and work harder. I found it so haunting to follow her journey.

Every time I hoped there would be something positive for the family, it never lasted long. I felt like my hope became just as jaded as Helen and her mother's the more the story progressed. This is a heavy read, make no mistake, but there are light moments and the ending feels hard won. The slight humour between Helen and Tommy, and her friends. Marigold's sass with her sisters. These little pockets of joy were much needed to lift the story out of the angst, even if only briefly.

I loved the fairytale full circle moment at the end. I'll be honest, by 75% of the book I was anticipating a more depressing resolution, but a realistic satisfaction awaited me instead. The ending did feel rushed at times, however I think part of that is because the rest of the book spanned decades while the last act had more time jumps.

Because I was so invested in Helen's story, her daughter Marigold's didn't feel as engaging. She needed to solve the mystery of her mother, but as we'd already read most of it ourselves from Helen's POV, the anticipation wasn't always there. Her interactions with Ken were light and fun, as were those with her sisters, but it was still Helen's voice that I was waiting for in that part of their lives.

Of course, this is a dense book spanning multiple generations and lives. Sometimes that made it hard for me to pick up the story, even though I knew once I did I would be immediately immersed in it's pages. There's also a lot of potentially triggering content, and while it didn't affect me like it might others, I still felt that cloud of depression and anxiety that follows Helen for most of her journey.

This book is a commitment, but one that will pay you back tenfold. A hauntingly beautiful insight into a dark yet hopeful lifetime.

Thank you to Elizabeth Lim and Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to receive an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

GoodReads and Fable reviews have been shared as of 17th June 2026, and Instagram and Amazon reviews will be posted on the UK publication date. I will update my feedback with the Instagram and Amazon links when available.

The “fishbone” part of the title is not just there to make the story feel more original or distinct from Western Cinderella adaptations. It directly connects to the older Chinese folklore that inspired Cinderella stories in the first place, where the fishbones carry deep symbolic meaning tied to survival, memory, grief, love, and loss. Because of that, the Cinderella influence here feels much more thematic and emotional than structural.

Yes, there are familiar themes: invisibility, cruelty, womanhood, sacrifice, and the longing to be seen. But the way the novel approaches them is far more grounded and emotionally devastating than readers might expect from a fairy-tale retelling. This is not a whimsical fantasy romance with recognisable Cinderella beats. It is a multi-generational story about war, displacement, motherhood, immigration, inherited trauma, and the painful ways families protect and wound each other.

The magical realism works less like fantasy and more like an emotional metaphor. Yut Ying’s ability to disappear never feels empowering in the traditional sense. Instead, it becomes tied to survival, silence, grief, and the emotional erasure women often endure. That is what makes the story feel so hauntingly human.

Elizabeth Lim’s prose remains beautiful, but this feels like a much more mature and literary direction for her writing. The pacing can feel slow and emotionally exhausting at times, yet I also think that heaviness is intentional. This is a book that asks the reader to sit with pain instead of escaping from it.

Readers expecting a fantasy-forward Cinderella retelling may end up disappointed simply because the market creates a very different expectation. But readers interested in historical depth, folklore symbolism, magical realism, and emotionally layered mother-daughter stories will probably find something unforgettable here.

4.5 ⭐️ for Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth LIm

When I tell you, I yearned for this book the moment I heard of it on social media. I was over the moon when my request got approved, and I have to say that I was not disappointed. Fishbone Cinderella will give you a lot more than you will ever expect: underrated parts of Chinese culture, sad romances, hopeful romances, complicated mother-daughter relationships. And a spoonful of diverse and captivating female characters.

Thank you NetGalley and HodderBooks for the E-Arc!

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for a chance to read this in advance, all thoughts are my own.

Oh this book made me want to weep and also rage at the world.

"The Yut Ying who was twelve years old wouldn't recognise the woman she'd become, who wore her unhappiness like armour. It came at a cost and that cost was Marigold"

This is a multi-PoV magical realism historical fiction following the POVs of Helen and Marigold, her daughter, over different generations dealing with the impact of a family curse. It begins in Japanese occupied China and when Yut Ying discovers that she can turn invisible as she hides in fear from Japanese soldiers ransacking her home.Fishbone Cinderella twines together the Chinese version of the story Cinderella with a story primarily about the women of the family. Throughout, the impact of the atrocities of war reverberates throughout the book and as each generation promises to do better than the one before, the trauma from before still trickled through and in some cases, floods through. I would say the magical realism aspect of the book is maybe 20% to the historical fiction aspect and throughout the story tugs as an undercurrent.

This book is profoundly emotional - I read as each cruel hand was thrown at Helen and watched as her light dimmed from the little girl who just wanted to go to school and be a singer to the maternal woman trying her best by her 3 daughters and repeating the same generational mistakes. I read with dismay as Marigold, gathered up her defences and shut herself away from people, as the curse struck her as a teenager. However she refused to just take the status quo and fought to work to fix what was happening to her and Helen. The romances in this were heart-swooping, oh so tragic and made my heart ache. Like the real world, not everyone gets their HEA but rather a love for what was built together through strife instead. The ending is left open for Marigold's romance and I found myself hoping for a bonus epilogue of her story.

The themes of mother-daughter bonds, wanting to do better for your kids, and a magic that threatens everything made me not want to stop reading. The writing of 1940s Hong Kong was so incredibly immersive and I was googling so much food I want to now try. However I did take multiple breaks reading this due to the emotional impact and am sure, I will be reflecting on this story for much more time to come.

"But no matter what I had to endure, never again would I try to vanish. Never again would I choose to become nothing".

4.5⭐️

This book sits heavily on my mind, the characters within having made a home right in my heart. Lim expertly blends fantastical elements into this devastating historical novel that reminds us of the importance of love, family, and how you never truly know what someone else has been through (or is currently going through).

This book is one to reflect on, to take your time with and really feel. If you’re expecting a fast-paced and action-packed fantasy story, then this isn’t that. Instead this story takes it time and allows us as readers to explore the characters fully to the point where they feel like a part of our real world.

This book is different to Lim’s other work but still has that wonderful prose and character work that we have come to expect. Beautiful.

Thank you to Hodder Books for the ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Fishbone Cinderella is a story set in 1940’s In China following a family curse that goes from China all the way to America.
It is inspired by the author’s own grandmother’s story of how she escaped China mixed with magical realism and also the Chinese version of Cinderella or (Yeh-Shen) The love stories in this book were heartbreaking.

Yut Ying (or Helen later on) was amazing, she persevered through all of the hardship she had to endure and survived the horrors of the time, I really hoped she would end up with Tommy, but now I understand that she did what she had to for survival.
The journey from China to America was so beautifully written, how in order for her to leave her home countru, she had to leave everything she knew behind, even her own shadow.
Then comes Marigold, with her love for books (which immediately won me over to her side of the story), her and Kenji were adorable and I’m so glad she managed to save her mother.
This book reminded me how much I love learning new things and different cultures, an easy 6 stars because of how well-written it was and how easy it was to love the main characters.

Elizabeth Lim really took Cinderella, replaced the fairy godmother with cursed golden fishbones, stretched the story across generations of women, war and immigration, and then used it to emotionally obliterate me. Following Yut Ying from 1940s China and Hong Kong to her later life with her daughter Marigold, this is far more than a fairytale retelling but a sweeping, magical family saga about mothers, daughters and the pain they inherit from one another.

I loved how the magic shimmered quietly beneath a story that felt painfully human. The curse may pass from mother to daughter, but so do grief, sacrifice, impossible expectations and all the things women are taught to endure without complaint. Yut Ying is flawed, complicated and SO heartbreakingly real; watching war, family and survival repeatedly reshape her dreams genuinely hurt me. Her relationship with Marigold was particularly moving because beneath every misunderstanding was so much love, the kind that did not always know how to make itself feel like love.

This was beautiful, devastating and ultimately hopeful, with the kind of ending that leaves you staring into space while your soul attempts to return to your body. This was a historical fantasy at its most intimate too, filled with magic and curses, but ultimately concerned with the ordinary ways families wound, protect and forgive one another. I finished it wanting to cry, hug my mum and dramatically return some enchanted fishbones to the sea. Absolutely unforgettable.