Fighting Demons

Hunting Monsters #2

by S.L. Huang

Xiao Hong travels to her mother's homeland in pursuit of Rosa in the sequel to Hunting Monsters

My seventeenth birthday, the day I became a woman in the eyes of the law, my mother sat down at the small table in our cottage and said, “It is time.”

It has been two years since Rosa fled the west, walking out on Xiao Hong and Mei, breaking their family. Now that the King's men no longer hunt the grundwirgen killer, Xiao Hong's mother makes the hard decision to return to her homeland to find Rosa and make their family whole again. Xiao Hong, still angry and hurt by her Auntie Rosa's secrets and lies, must decide whether or not she will join her mother's quest.

Xu Meng Jiao grew up knowing his mother was a demon, and that he must save her.

Meng Jiao has lived in the shadow of his parents for his entire life. The child of a human father and snake demon mother, he has vowed to become the best possible student, scholar, and son he can be--in the hopes of saving his mother from her imprisonment.

Two paths collide in Fighting Demons, as Xiao Hong and Meng Jiao come to terms with their parents, their families, and find their place in the world.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Retellings, Fiction, Lesbian, LGBT, Queer

66 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 22, 2015

Reviews

[jenny✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps I could be a person of more than one heart, just as I was a daughter of more than one land.

I'm NEVER going to tire of stories—fantastical, literal, metaphorical—told and retold about the complex, ambivalent relationships between diasporic Chinese parents and children.

I didn't find this short story as tautly paced as its prequel—hence the star rating—but it was nonetheless executed with what I'm coming to recognize as S.L. Huang's trademark elegance and thoughtfulness.

The central conceit in Fighting Demons both interweaves and dichotomizes Eastern and Western norms about familial love. Meng Jiao's the half-human son of a powerful snake demon, while Xiao Hong's the half-white daughter of a Chinese woman sold to the West many years ago. He champions filial piety and unquestioning loyalty, while she argues for the importance of independence and love that isn't blinded by tradition or glory. Both straddle two worlds.

And together, they help each other understand that there is a liminal space where all of these things, nuanced and conflicting though they are, can exist.

[Jassmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

And somehow my mother's posture and movement marked her so clearly as foreign here even before she opened her mouth, as easily as her features had marked her as foreign back home. In the eyes of the world, she was a person without land.

In this continuation of Hunting Monsters Xiao Hong and her mother go to Mei's motherland (inspired by China) to search for Auntie Rosa. This story is inspired by Chinese fairy-tale Legend of the White Snake which I didn't hear about before but which does sound pretty amazing and I might possibly search for it. This is mainly a story about children and their parents and the relationships between them and how the expectations are different in different cultures and maybe none of them is really ideal.

I really loved this short-story and am looking forward to reading the last installment in the series Burning Roses. Absolutely would recommend!

You can read it for free here: https://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2015...

[Mitticus · Rating 3 out of 5]

En Booksmugglers

Family love and Duty are complicated matters, even more with different culture backgrounds.



Me fue dificil seguir la historia entre tanto nombre semejante; en todo caso, senti más simpatia por el chico que por la chica.

[J (Midnight Book Blog) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, though not quite as much as the first.

[Ariadne Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://thebooksmugglers.com/2015/09/f...

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to give this a higher rating because I want more fantasy stories about immigrant kids returning to their parents' homeland and I want more retellings of Asian folklore and fairy tales. But I also want them to be good, and this has excellent intentions (and is a sequel to a story I really loved!) but the execution falls a little flat. It's less of a sequel than a start of sequel that runs into someone else's story, someone who doesn't quite have enough story to fill out a narrative outing of his own so he sort of tags along here and in the end no one really gets their fair share. The idea of coming to grips with your own fears by seeing someone else's is a classic trope and I sympathize with both these kids trying to understand what it means to love your parents but there's just not enough there to hold onto beyond asking the initial question. As an additional disappointment, the legend of the white snake is one of the great chinese classic fairy tales and there's very little done with it here beyond what amounts to set dressing, whereas in the first story the fairy tales were re-interpreted as an integral part of the story.

tl;dr I liked it! But I wish I liked it more.

[Dev · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read but I didn't like it quite as much as the first story. I think it might be because the story was really too short to handle the two different plot lines it had going on so everything felt very rushed. Also I'm not sure if this one is based on some Chinese mythology I'm not familiar with or if it's just the author doing her own thing at this point so that might have something to do with it as well. I do like how the two characters' opinions and feelings influence each other, but this felt kind of like the middle of a story and as far as I know there is no third part to this series so it definitely has an unfinished feeling to it.

[TheBookSmugglers]

The sequel to Hunting Monsters! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Out now!

[Quỳnh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fighting Demons (Chiến quái): Đã hai năm kể từ khi bác Rosa chạy trốn, lính của nhà vua cũng ngừng truy lùng. Mai thị quyết tâm trở về cố hương để tìm Rosa và mong Tiểu Hồng đi cùng. Tuy vẫn còn giận dữ và tổn thương bởi những bí mật và lời nói dối của bác Rosa, đã đến lúc cô phải quyết định mình có muốn tham gia chuyến đi này không.
Hứa Mạch Giao là con của một người đàn ông phàm trần và bạch xà tinh. Cha anh luôn hối thúc con trai học tập chăm chỉ để có thể đỗ Trạng nguyên và giải cứu người mẹ đang bị giam cầm trong tháp Lôi Phong.
Hai con đường tình cờ giao nhau, hai cá tính Đông Tây va chạm. Liệu họ có thể cùng nhau tìm ra lời giải thỏa đáng về tình thân và vị trí của bản thân trong thế giới này.
*Đề cử cho những ai có hứng thú với: truyền thuyết Trung Hoa.

Là phần tiếp theo của 'Hunting Monsters', tác giả đã thay đổi cách tiếp cận, không hề cải biên truyền thuyết gốc (Bạch xà truyện) mà chỉ chọn góc nhìn của người con trai (nhân vật này còn không có tên riêng trong truyện gốc) để kể một câu chuyện riêng. Cá nhân mình cảm thấy sự cuốn hút của 'Fighting Demons' đã giảm đi đáng kể so với phần đầu. Không còn bí ẩn nào để độc giả theo dõi nữa. Giờ ta có hai con người trẻ tuổi với những rắc rối cá nhân, một cốt truyện YA khá đặc trưng đã không còn hấp dẫn mình. Truyện đọc ổn. Có lẽ mình vẫn sẽ đọc 'Burning Roses' khi nào có hứng thú.

[Daniy ♠ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Annoying af

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The alternating third and first person narration for the two MCs was just a little more confusing than intended and the fairy tale and its set up took up a lot more focus. Good, but I liked book 1 better.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was meh, and the multi-POV really didn't work for me.

Rating: 2.5 stars

[Katie]

I remember really loving Burning Roses (the novella and I guess technically the third in this series), and wishing there was more. I’m glad I found these two prequel short stories; they continue the world building, as well as look at themes (Asian diaspora identity, mixed race identity, filial piety, and complicated feelings about your family) that I find fascinating. If the author ever does write a full length book in this world I would be the first to buy it.

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn’t realised that this would be a continuation of the previous story, I more believed it would just be a bunch of unconnected short stories set in the same world. I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted with the same characters as before showing off more of this world, as well as meeting new characters. I enjoyed delving more into the lore and learning some about Chinese fairytales this time round with the white and green snakes.

[Chelsea Moreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first short story but still enjoyable and full of interesting things to think about.

[mel (cardan’s bff (real)) · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love s.l. huang’s writing sm

[Vervada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and left me wanting to know what will happen to Mei and Xiao Hong next, if they'll ever find Rosa. Good thing there's another novella in this series; I hope it answers my question.

[Georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another lovely story that made me want more. I like the character journeys in such a small amount of time.

[fefokolie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"you're in the wind, i'm in the water
nobody's son, nobody's daughter"

[Aqsa 🍉🇵🇸 · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Rebecca]

After enjoying Hunting Monsters, I was looking forward to revisiting this world. While Fighting Demons is as well-written as the first story, I didn't find it to be as satisfying a sequel as I'd hoped. We meet Xiao Hong two years after Hunting Monsters ended, and are also introduced to a new character and POV through Xu Meng Jiao - the latter a contributing factor to why I don't think the story was as strong. I wasn't invested in Meng Jiao's story and would liked more time with Xiao Hong, a character I'd already come to care for.

I was glad that a romance didn't spark between them and that their fleeting meeting solidified their purpose, amongst the confusion and doubt they both faced. Ultimately, these stories are about family and I'm glad it stayed that way.

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fighting Demons is the sequel to Hunting Monsters. This one takes place in "the east" of this world, which seems to correlate with the east of our world. It is less of a fairy tale retelling, at least of a western fairy tale retelling (perhaps there is a tale here I am not familiar with). I wasn't as fond of this story as I was the first. It felt a bit less cohesive with the introduction of new characters, and without the familiar fairy tale framework, the messages the narrative was trying to get across felt less supported. I look forward to any potential sequel as the story is not over, but this felt very "middle syndrome".

[Rei A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read "Hunting Monsters" when it was released and found the world and the characters so intriguing, so I was thrilled to read "Fighting Demons"--finally--and revisit this world. This time, Huang takes the Chinese tale of the "Legend of the White Snake" and uses it as the backdrop to a tale of cultural clashes (which were beautifully done and utterly illustrative of the differences between a Western raised child and an Asian raised child) and examining when one's obligations and forgiveness to family ends and where a person begins.The prose and language is well written, fairy tale and fantasy-like without being ponderous.

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing story about magical creatures, parent-child relationships, forgiveness, and making choices.

Read it here

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[Littlebookterror · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this is a prequel, I read the novella Burning Roses first.
Go here if you want to read it for free.

This one was not for me.
The dual POV, the story, the comparisons drawn between our two leads, it all left me feeling bored.

[LittlePiscesReading · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
This is my fourth time reading it and the jumble of too many narrators has never quite smoothed out in my familiarity with the text. It's less of a battle in some ways. The emotional of the core of it has gotten more and more potent but it still feels like a mess in a lot of ways.

[Lie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok but Auntie!?

This story felt like it was personal for the author.

[gowri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing once again, and I'm really interested in learning more about Mei's homeland...not a full 5 stars bc of certain writing choices and descriptors.