This was unexpected! I bought it about ten years ago for some book club and never ended up reading it.

Set in 1967 in Hong Kong, this short novel follows two young teenage girls as they struggle to understand the dangers of world they are living in. Their father is a photographer for Time who lives only when he is in Vietnam taking pictures of the war. Their mother is distant, painting pretty pictures and avoiding thinking of anything bad, a bit of a talisman to keep her husband safe. She doesn't seem to notice, or be able to do anything about the fact that her oldest daughter is rapidly spiraling out of control.

The girls are watched over by a nanny, an amah, who calls them "white ghost girls" (and sometimes "little whores") in Chinese. The younger sister, Kate, is the narrator; she is looking back at this summer from adulthood trying to figure out if there was anything she did that could have been undone or done differently to change the path.

The girls are as different as can be: Kate introverted and quiet, Frankie extroverted and showy. After a frightening, guilt-inducing event in the marketplace, Frankie begins to desperately cry for more attention from her mother, her sister, anyone who can give it. Mostly, however, she wants her father to love her as much as he loves the war. Kate is stuck trying to cover for Frankie and keep her out of trouble, a thankless and impossible task.

As the story progresses, the atmosphere, never light, becomes more and more claustrophobic until the reader is almost gasping for air along with the characters. A sad, sad book about loss, sisters, and how we can't keep one another from making awful choices.

Goddamn it this book had me in tears on a flight from Hong Kong to Abu Dhabi. Beautiful and heartbreaking and written like a box of faded Polaroids, shuffled and water-stained over time.

I read this book whilst on holiday in Hong Kong. I think this really enhanced the writing as Alice Greenway describes Hong Kong in such a beautiful way which I was able to relate to whilst wondering around the city. I was probably heading for a 3* until the ending which really shocked me but was very cleverly done. I liked that Greenway did not sugar-coat anything and the ending felt powerful and raw. I think this is a book I will re-read slowly to savour the writing and build up now I am aware of the ending

This was recommended to me awhile ago and I am glad I finally read it. The story is told from the point of view of a young American teen who is living in Hong Kong with her older sister and mother while their father photographs the Vietnam War. There are so many themes and various historical references throughout-Mao's Cultural Revolution, Colonialism, the Vietnam War, and familial relations. The author forewarns that something ominous is going to happen to the older sister, Frankie, but it still comes as a surprise. I liked the way the characters are shown through the eyes of one who is growing up and losing her innocence.

I purchased a copy of Alice Greenway's White Ghost Girls soon after it came out in paperback, and remember feeling quite underwhelmed by it. In recent years, I have been wanting to attempt a reread, but could not find my copy anywhere, and therefore fear I may have taken it to the local Oxfam some time ago. Thankfully, my local library came to the rescue, and I was able to sit down on a quiet weekend afternoon and read this in one go.

It turns out that I remembered the bare bones of the story, but not a lot of detail, and the ending took me by surprise. The social and historical contexts in White Ghost Girls have been well researched, and I very much enjoyed the use of short, fragmented sections and chapters to build what came together as a complete story. On my second reading, White Ghost Girls was far more engaging than I remembered, and Greenway's powerful descriptions evocative of a bygone time. Whilst I only ended up liking this novel, rather than really enjoying it, I am definitely interested enough in Greenway's style to seek out more of her work.