The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney - A Review

The Face on the Milk Carton is the first book out of five written by Caroline Cooney for the Janie Johnson series. It's on the suspense category. The book is about Janie Johnson, a 15 year old orange-haired lass who found out she was kidnapped when she was little after seeing her photo at the back of a milk carton. I've seen this before on one of Blur's mtv which showed a photo of a child at the back of a walking milk carton. I don't know but I guess that's the best way to find a lost or kidnapped kid in the U.S or other parts of the globe per se because everyone practically consumes milk/part of almost each and every household.

Going back, Janie tried to rummaged their attic for any sort of evidence that would support she's not her parents real daughter. She found the same exact dress hidden in one of the dusty boxes, the same one she saw the kid wearing (which she presumes to be her) at the back of the milk carton. Janie thought how com her parents were a little older that the rest of her friends. Janie had a boyfriend, her next door neighbor Reeve with whom she confided everything about her suspicions.

One time Janie confronted her parents about what she found out. Her parents said that she was their daughter's child named Hannah. During the hippies era Hannah went away with a cult called Hare Krishna, bore a child who happened to be her. Hannah went home one day back to her parents abode with her but later on decided to go back to the cult. Mr. and Mrs Johnson (the parents Janie grew up with) decided to move so Hannah won't find her daughter. Her parent's just wanted what's best for their grand daughter basically.

Janie is apprehensive as there's this long term memory that lingers to her everytime about a child with her happy family, ice cream, happy parents etcetera. Janie then researched about the Jenny Spring kidnapping which happened to be what's written at the back of the milk carton. She drove off to New Jersey with Reeve to the Springs home and saw how the Spring kids looked just like her, the hair color and all.

How did this book ended? Janie was reunited with her Spring family, she forgave her Johnson parents for what happened but she later on found how her disappearance changed her Spring family so much and the rest is on the next book What Happened to Janie?

Ok, it was a nice read actually. It kept me reading because I too got curious if Janie was indeed kidnapped or what really happened to her as a kid. This book made me think what if you grew up with parents you've known all your life and turn out to be kidnappers? I think the best way to figure that out is to scour for baby photos, baptismal, school, or any sort of photos with your momma holding you as a baby at the hospital or simply a birth certificate with your name on it. How to figure if it's valid? Go to the city hall and make sure you're a registered individual. This is really happening I suppose as this novels won't be around if not. I mean I've read a lot about kidnappings because let's face it, some parents are not always auspicious to have their own child so being immensely deranged they resort to kidnapping. I guess this is extremely painful for the child no matter how nice her alleged parents are, to be robbed out of your right to be with your biological family.

I thought how lucky of me that I indeed grew up with my biological family but also thought that what if not right? I just don't know how some people could get away with such crime and I mean conscience wise.

Oh by the way I read there's already a movie adaptation made years back so I'm actually curious to watch it hmmm. 

Read More

the ghost bride, yangsze choo

“And to the one who has led me through the valley of the shadow of death. (Psalm 23:4)”

*ghost marriage*

“The folk tradition of marriages to ghosts or between ghosts usually occurred in order to placate spirits or allay a haunting.”

Excerpt From: Choo, Yangsze. “The Ghost Bride.” © 2013


• Setting : 


Malaya, 1893 - is the historic name of Malaysia before independence. British Malaya was a loose set of states, including Singapore, that was under varying degrees of British control from 1771 to 1948.




• Characters and Meanings of their Names:


• Li Lan (Beautiful Orchid) - main character of the book and was fixed marriage (as a ghost bride) to the deceased lim tian ching.


• Tian Bai (Bright Sky) - li lan's love interest. 


• Lim Tian Ching (Eternal Sky) - alleged poisoning, caused of death; li lan's prospect husband and came from a wealthy clan. cousins with tian bai and yan hong. 


• Fan (Fragrance) - li lan met while she was a wandering soul. helped li lan get to the 'plains of the dead'


• Yan Hong (Red Swallow) - lim tian ching ang tian bai's female cousin.


• Er Lang (Second Son) - lin lan met while she was a wandering soul. significant character who was not human but rescued li lan from all the trouble she's been through whilst in the world of the afterlife. li lan's 2nd love interest. 


• Amah - li lan's grandmother


• Third Auntie - helped li lan to escape from the ox headed demons whilst at plains of the dead. 


• li lan's father - opium smoker, wallowing in debt  thus the reason why li lan needs to marry a man from the lim family. 


Synopsis: 


li lan's mother died when she was little due to a chicken pox outbreak. only li lan and her  father survived. her father became socially withdrawn due to the marks left by the pox. her father's business ventures failed thus left him in debt with the lim family thus resulted to li lan's becoming a ghost bride to the only deceased heir in the family lim tian ching. li lan was raised by her Amah (grandmother) because her mother died young since her father became an opium smoker although lived in the same household. 


li lan met tian bai during her visit to the lim family mansion and became attracted to tian bai at first sight not knowing he was lim tian ching's cousin. 


lim tian ching haunted li lan in her dreams telling her how she should behave once she marries the later. after li lan told her amah the two went to a medium to ask for advise. the medium told li lan to burn funeral money and write her name on paper. although the situation seemed hopeless the medium gave her this powder which she have to take if ever she gets haunted again by lim tian ching along with some herbs plus this yellow paper which she needs to place on her bedroom window to cast him off. during the first few days the medium's advise worked but the haunting continued on so li lan took more of the powder which caused her overdose and was comatosed because she was prescribed an 'opium' according to the doctor who examined li lan. much to amah and li lan's father shock. 


li lan became a wandering soul with transparent thread attach to her. she bagan traveling which started out when she first set her foot outside her abode. she was not able to come back to her physical body in a long time because she recounted that there were ox-headed demons guarding her house and will no longer allow her to get back to her body. 


it was a lengthly but interesting ebook by the way because of li lan's journey to the plains of dead (destination of people who died). li lan met Fan, an earthbound soul who's been spying on her lover life since she died. fan thought li lan was an angel and helped her to cross the plains of the dead in exchange for funeral money and items which fan would later on use for her and her lover when the time comes he dies as well. 


going back, while wandering li lan visited tian bai in his dreams by using her thread as a way of communicating with him (as per fan it's a good way to communicate to the living) she learned that tian bai had a relationship with a british girl in hongkong. 


then came er lang.


li lan thought er lang was the same guy she saw during her and amah's visit to the medium. she saw er lang talking with the ox-headed demons whilst in the forest. er lang caught li lan following him (the over confident eccentric guy with his self confessed good looks that makes many women swoon) who happens to be not human and wears this oversized bamboo hat. 


li lan crossed the plains of the dead withvthe help of fan. if you ask me what it means it's actually like the afterworld version of li lan's hometown except everything else there is lifeless, no blood but wounds exists. prior to that li  lan also met chendan, a horse which just sprouted from nowhere. i presume it came from tian bai when li lan asked for him to draw a horse and burn it for her (as a funeral offering of which tian bai was not aware of) thus spawned chendana. li lan was told previously by fan that she needs to have transportation to cross the plains of the dead. 


many things happened in the plains, li lan met her mother whom she thought was the third concubine. li lan was happy they met on the afterlife although she's not technically dead. she got locked up because she was accused of being a spy, lim tian ching found out about her thus the ox-headed demons were supposed to see her in the plains of the dead court etcetera.


 let me fast forward, li lan found that the third auntie she knew happened to be her mother and traded her youth for li lan to survive the pox outbreak then helped her escaped. er lang also helped li lan escape the ox-headed demons. li lan grew this fascination with er lang who happened to be a dragon. she escaped the plains in short after having heavily chased by the bird demons in the sky with the help of er lang who came badly wounded. li lan thought er died and never knew about his fate until she came back to the world earthbound spirit again. 


li lan found that fan possessed her body and tian bai and her is supposed to marry to her father's delight because all of her family's debt were paid for by tian bai. fan told li lan to go away because she will be a forgotten sooner and her soul would turn weak. li lan was revived by er lang's 'qi' (in hindu i think 'qi' means life force). fan, in li lan's body was summoned by the ox-headed demons to the courts of hell but never got there according to er lang. 


going back, lim tian ching accused tian bai poisoning him and kept telling li lan about it. later on i found out that yan hong, the cousin, was the accidental murder because she made lim tian ching drink this tea to cause him extreme headache but eventually seizured and accidentally died. 


li lan fell in love with the handsome er lang in his human form and dragon in his underworld form. he offered li lan marriage but set her expectations that their life won't be normal. er lang before i forgot is one of the courts of hell officials so he's got many powers ok?  at the same time by the way li lan accepted tian bai's offer to marry but soon realized she loved er lang the most. 


li lan weigh the pros and cons of marrying tian bai aiming for a life of ease because of tian bai's family wealth but later on decided to marry er lang. love prevailed. 


the end. 


so, what's my take on the book? t'was really nice i should say so myself because of how creative yangzse choo illustrated the plains of the dead in my head. i've known in the past that the chinese bury fake money for their deceased relatives to help them get by in the afterlife as they will spend it there, burn drawings of things so they will have their version in the plains of the dead.  it is a love story with so much more twist and made me see things differently although the book is of course fictional. li lan's adventures in the afterlife turned really exciting and heart racing at times because reading the book made me see a motion picture in my head. i really enjoyed it a lot because of its queerness and never boring turn of events. the courts of hell according to yangsze choo depicted the corruption literally in the government and bureacracy. i'm giving her  five stars in Goodreads for this book. a must read bookworm. 


if my personal synopsis confused you, go figure and read the book yerself! :) 




Read More