The Undertaking of Lily Chen

The Undertaking of Lily Chen by Danica Novgorodoff, 429 pages

After Deshi's brother's death, he is tasked with finding a wife (preferably a not-too-rotten corpse) to accompany his brother in his grave and into to the afterlife.  What follows is something of a morbid-Goldilocks tale - this corpse is too old, this one too young... until Deshi runs into Lily Chen.  She's just right, unfortunately she's still alive.

I found Novgordoff's tale to be somewhat uneven.  The characters aren't particularly well developed despite the novel clocking in at a whopping 429 pages (when you break the 400 page mark, I start expecting Craig Thompson levels of character development).  I personally don't care for Novgordoff's character drawing style, but her background water colors do live up to the promise of the lovely sky/skull cover illustration.  Lily is a bit of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a trope that never goes over very well with me.  While this book wasn't my cup of tea, I have a feeling I may be in the minority - it has loads of glowing reviews out there.