The Girl with No Reflection
Author: Keshe Chow
Published: 2024
Target audience: Young adult (appropriate ages 16+)
Ying Yue has been chosen to marry a stranger, Crown Prince Zhang Lin. Yet her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, filling Ying with an unease that only worsens as she begins to see inexplicable things: Movements in the corner of her mirror, discrepancies in her reflection, and a ghostly white hand reaching out from a pond’s surface. Then on the eve of her wedding, Ying is unwittingly pulled into a mirror world.
The mirror realm is full of fantastical creatures and sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. Unlike his real-world counterpart, the Mirror Prince is kind and compassionate, and Ying soon finds herself falling in love…
But something is not right in the mirror world. An ancient and bloody history binds the two realms, and a looming prophecy threatens to ignite war once again. Ying must race to discover what role she plays in this prophecy if she ever hopes to save the ones she loves.
But in this arena of conflicting truths and dangerous possibilities, who can Ying truly trust?
Review:
This book is a prime example of why characters need personalities. Despite its intriguing premise, ‘The Girl with No Reflection’ fails to establish a basic want, goal, or character arc to enable readers to relate to Ying or become invested in her journey. Worse, Ying’s entire characterisation barely extends beyond ‘I’m not like other girls’ and ‘horny.’ With no other nuance or engaging development, audience attachment to the novel’s protagonist is severely impeded, and will likely dissuade many readers from finishing the book. While Ying is not an inactive main character, her effectiveness in driving the plot is limited as answers and solutions are handed to her with little effort on Ying's part, and her decisions are often ill-thought and have negative consequences for everyone but her. Despite being 18-years-old, Ying comes across as having the mental capacity and reasoning of a 12-year-old, which makes for extremely uncomfortable reading when scenes become sexually charged.
This inadequate characterisation is unfortunately also present in the secondary characters, whose personalities consist of ‘possessive’ for the Mirror Prince, ‘jealous’ for Prince Zhang, and ‘evil’ for Reflection-Ying. With little development beyond these simplistic traits, ‘The Girl with No Reflection’ struggles to foster any impetus for readers to care about the protagonist’s journey, her interactions with other characters, or romantic relationships. The book is also rife with cliche dialogue, present-day anachronisms, and modern social values that clash with the Imperial Chinese setting. The story is predictably formulaic in its narrative progression, rendering romantic moments and plot twists completely unsurprising and emotionally unaffecting.
‘The Girl with No Reflection’ is a young adult romantasy and the debut novel of Malaysian-born Chinese Australian writer Keshe Chow. The novel’s issues as outlined in this review are symptomatic of an apparent current trend in the publishing industry where romance and fantasy books are being released in a less than polished state and still in need of significant structural editing. I wish I could have read what this story might have been.
Excerpt:
“You swapped?” His eyes were in shadow, their expression unreadable.
[…] Inwardly, she chastised herself for not asking her reflection more questions before they swapped.
She looked up at the Mirror Prince, her mind churning. “I…agreed to.”
He shifted slightly into the light, throwing his features into sharp relief. “Why?”
The breath snagged in Ying’s throat. She couldn’t get the explanation out even if she tried. The silence between them thickened.
“Is it because of him?” He motioned to the real prince’s image in the other side of the glass. “Is it the wedding?”
Ying did not respond; the Prince took her silence as an answer. Reaching out, he tipped Ying’s chin up with the very tips of his fingers until their eyes locked. “You know what? I don’t blame you. I’ve seen how he treats you.” He pulled a face. “I’ve even had to mimic it.”