This is my new favorite book and an author I am going to follow. I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator was lovely too!
This book was everything to me and I’m so glad Julie Leong is writing another book because I really didn’t want to leave this one.
I’ve been looking for books that promote and represent aro/ace characters, and while nothing is really confirmed in that space for these characters, I felt so seen through Tao and slightly with Kina.
I Loved Every Character rant (There may be spoilers):
Every character had a story, a flaw or problem to overcome. Tao was not only the glue that brought and kept everyone together (by happenstance more or less), but also a fully developed main character whose own problem/s were equally as important as the rest of the party’s. She is running away from home and trying to make a life for herself on her own. She’s been traveling for quite some time and is not exactly rejoicing when the inciting incident characters join her, slightly through invitation. However, like vines on an old house, these new companions grow on her and she grows to find that she prefers life with them—even after the bonds of the later more developed group are tested over and over.
The main storyline could be said to be the search for Mash’s daughter, but through this and Tao’s preexisting situation, every character has their own personal journey and growth woven together.
Very little is as it seems on the surface. Tao is not a simple traveling fortune teller. Kina is not just a pretty baker girl who struggles to get things right. Silt is not just a recovering flirtatious thief. Even Mash breaks stereotypes by being known for poetry and love, despite his warrior past and appearance. Beyond that! The problems our characters face are dealt with in completely unexpected, yet very realistic and comforting ways! There is constantly more to the story and I loved every “more” that it offered.
One of the things that stood out to me particularly was the way Kina handled Silt’s flirtations. I was worried that the story would be predictable there and have her fall in love with him, but instead it did exactly what I started thinking about writing a story about for myself! She turned him down and we got to watch very real reactions to very real complicated conversations and emotions. I think that was around the moment when I started repeating in various ways “I love this book” out loud as I listened. Not only that, but Kina and Tao start doing business together and—talk about strong, well written female characters who also don’t have to fall in love! ❤️
I laughed out loud and cried and laughed while crying several times while reading this book.
Problems: I wished we got a little more “magic” from the “all cats are slightly magical” cat. Mostly everything Fidelitous did seemed like a normal cat/animal thing. However, I saw in her next book, there will be a cat dragon. 😮
There was also an arch that felt a little forced and a lot like a video game quest or DnD quest, but then I saw how it did more than that for a main character’s development and I actually loved that. I just feel like it could have been brought about in a less quest-y and a little smoother way. It was also tied in to a later conversation with a major sort of plot twist, and I liked how that was included.
It was like the author loved and cared for every single situation and character she created. No strings were left untied and even strings we didn’t need to check in on, we got to and it was all the more delightful. Such rich worldbuilding and beautifully executed.
I felt at first that this story was a mixture of Kiki’s Delivery Service and Howl’s Moving Castle, and then I saw all the books the author read that inspired this one and found Howl’s Moving Castle was definitely one of them. The lighthearted style and humor is so there and I also felt some of the Terry Prachet inspiration coming through at times too.
I’m putting this book on my wishlist of physical copies I need to own. My heart is broken and made so much more full than it was before. ❤ ❤ ❤
One more thing! Julie Leong said she loved reading all these books but found one thing missing in many of them—immigration stories. With The Teller Of Small Fortunes, she therefore wanted to remedy that problem. I am not an immigrant (yet) myself, but I think she did a profound job at bring this experience to life through Tao, her mother, and the shop keeper. I also loved hearing the narrator pronounce Chinese words and names. Such beauty is this world. Thank you for helping these things be seen. ❤
N. K. Valek: Author 