From the Publisher
"This was a wild ride and I loved every second of it." — Jami Attenberg, author of A Reason to See You Again and The Middlesteins
"Slick, shrewd, and brimming with suspense, Sister Snake explores the unspeakable cost of staying true to who you are in a world built on lies. Amanda Lee Koe delivers a thrilling, action-packed fable made for these topsy-turvy times." — Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit
“Amanda Lee Koe has written a wild, sexy steroidal burst of a novel. A freewheeling retelling of an ancient Chinese legend, Sister Snake is an inquiry into self-reinvention, escaping one’s destiny, belonging and all that makes us human—or not." — Tash Aw, author of We, The Survivors and Five Star Billionaire
"Amanda Lee Koe's tale of serpentine sisterhood will wend its way into your heart. Drawing equally from folklore and current events, this fearless novel entertains and delights. Beneath its beguiling surface, Sister Snake explores fundamental questions: Are our destinies determined by our bodies? What forms can family take? And what, in the end, does it mean to be human?" — Rajesh Parameswaran, author of I Am An Executioner
"Brilliant...the author seamlessly integrates centuries of Chinese culture and history with shrewd social commentary on class, gender, and race. This propulsive story astonishes.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] cosmpolitan, thrilling tale...This riveting, fast-paced novel, with its seamless balance of fantasy and realism, explores contemporary issues through an otherworldly lens." — Booklist
"This suspenseful, fantastical and funny tale draws on themes of identity, belonging, truth and tradition.” — Ms. Magazine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2024-08-30
A darkly comic contemporary fairy tale about estranged sisters who happen to have been born snakes.
The story riffs on the ancient Chinese “Legend of the White Snake,” in which a krait and a viper made a pact to be sisters forever. The krait yearned to become human, so the viper, though happy in her skin, agreed to transform too. For 800 years they practiced Taoist “self-cultivation” until they became immortal human women named Su and Emerald. “Self-cultivation? How Goop of you,” Emerald’s 21st-century best friend quips, capturing the book’s prevailing tone of satiric, campy waggishness. In the present day, Emerald ekes out a sketchy bohemian existence in Brooklyn financed by men she meets on a sugar daddy app. A millionaire for 200 years, Su lives in Singapore, married to an ambitious official in the city-state’s government. Vivid physical and sociological descriptions bring both cities to realistic as well as symbolic life. Unruly New York represents Emerald’s embrace of individualism and impetuous spontaneity, while buttoned-down Singapore parallels the value Su places on assimilation and safety. Fully realized as complicated women, the sisters share a protective love/hate relationship all female siblings will recognize. But these sisters are also snakes, and evidently green vipers are impulsive but less deadly than white kraits, which bite infrequently but are “ruthless” with more poisonous venom. The sisters’ diametrically opposed approaches to being human become clear during Su’s lethal trip to New York, followed by Emerald’s disastrous visit to Singapore. The obvious dichotomy between their views and values, coupled with reptilian amorality, set off a series of events ranging from graphically violent and deeply tragic to romantically bittersweet and deliberately, eloquently silly.
Slithers gleefully around hot-button issues such as gender politics and racism without a whiff of didacticism.
