Marrying Buddha by Wei Hui Book Review

Marrying Buddha by Wei Hui - Book Review

This book is something of a sequel to the author's phenomenally successful Shanghai Baby. It features the same character, Coco, a successful novelist, and the book itself is semi-autobiographical.

She meets the charismatic Muju, half Italian, half Japanese, falls in love with him and some of his eccentric ways, while others clearly annoy her.

The tale is set in Fuxing Street, Shanghai, and New York, with occasional sojourns to the Spanish speaking world. It would seem that Coco could not be happier, but then she meets the urbane New Yorker, Nick, who is younger and better looking than George Clooney, so she says, as he runs his hands through his thick dark hair, quite often, and things really begin to hot up.

I have seen this book described as soft porn. It certainly isn't that, but the writer doesn't hold back in explaining her relationships with Muju and Nick. Some people might just describe it as growing up.

The book is easy to read, something of a page turner too, and I could imagine it stuffed into many a holiday travel bag, beach reading at its lightest.

One thing we did find rather surprising was the large number of typing errors in the text. If an independent press produced a book with as many, or heaven forbid, a self published work came out like this, there would be no mercy from the critics, who would pounce on such carelessness with great glee. You can hear the carping now. Self published books need a good edit! But this comes from a publisher whose history goes all the way back to 1795, and no one seems to bat an eyelid at that. What's good for the goose, and all that.

Perhaps the critics of self published and independently produced works should show a little more patience and leniency with their pens in this area. Rant over! I thank you.