I did not realise it is a collection of poems when i started reading it. i read it as i would short stories. being not really a literary person, i was surprised to realise that they were a collection of poems. it is something new to me and i enjoyed reading it.
at first, i read the ‘stories’ or poems, on its own until i realised when read together, or weaved in the chapters, it could be a whole story of two individuals, i mean, it is! it has to be. i like surprises like this!
it challenges the reader to imagine as an inanimate, observing as a third ‘person’ of two lives. it is refreshing. it is intimate. i am not a fan of reading (having, sadly, found out along the way) about betrayal or extra marital affairs, i guess it tries to humanise the emotions involved. but i am sure if the chapters are read on its own, it could give glimpses of different meanings and experiences.
it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it certainly is not for me (storyline-wise) but i appreciate the refreshing notion of reading poems as though they were short stories and the surprise that if you put a mindset of reading the chapters together, it almost draws you in to read about the two individuals into one whole story, like a novel on its own. and with a vague ending, as all short stories are.
I am so proud for having read this! An Asian writer to be applaud and be proud of! The moment it started with “If this will hurt you, please don’t read my book,” in the author’s note…i’m hooked. I mean, i have not read any book with its author stating that don’t read my book if its going hurt you. Risky and….caring..at the same time?!
A story that managed to grip and grab my attention with just being frustrated of the protagonist, i mean i am really frustrated with her and wished i could say “Girl! Snap out of it already!” but at the same time, wished that we could just, “come on, help her already!!”
This book has so many things going on without feeling overwhelmed or ‘messy’. It’s about friendship in hard times, regardless of your differences. It’s about a daughter and mother’s love and frantic search for one another in dangerous times. It’s about history and there’s snippets of violence delicately described so as not to put off readers like me (i don’t really read anything related to war, terrorism, strikes, bloodshed, etc) but realistically enough that i could pretty much have a picture of the events in my mind.
Most importantly, it’s about one’s struggling with a mental disability, tastefully shadowed as ‘exorcism’, as per our ‘culture.’
I can feel her exhaustion and frustration. that deep struggle to be okay when it’s easier said than done because it was not something she can control, no matter how much she wanted to control them. that need. sigh….my mind almost feel as tired as her while reading this.
I definitely loved the climax of when she finally found her mother, my heart dropped too! i was like, finally!!! like we could finally breathe now, like all this while, our mother is alive!! all those worries and fears!! and we could let our guards drop for a short while because our mother is here in front of us. just here.(see how i use ‘we’ and ‘our’ here, coz i’m so immersed with her).
I think this book should be read by all Malaysian students, even as part of their literature (language or historical) subject.
I read this as an ebook borrowed from the NLB app and really, I didn’t expect to be blown away by it. It was also my first full fledged ebook reading. i must say it was a good start. the storyline caught my attention so much that i ‘open’ it up every time i was on the bus to find out how the story goes.
I can say I enjoy e-book reading now. but need to be very selective on what ebooks i borrowed. it had to be something i can enjoy… am so glad of this NLB- ebook borrowing…why didn’t i find this joy much earlier??!!
so anyway, this is a good read for something ‘light’ and quick. the storyline is no way that light. what i meant by light is, it isn’t a thick epic fantasy book.
should any child or teen read this? a definite yes. so many learning points that you can find. sigh…i can almost imagine the flood of discussion you can have if you are a literature or history teacher.
friendship, hardship, love, parent-child relationship, loss, death, racism, interfaith, harmony, violence, right and wrong, truth, politics, mental health, confidence, self-esteem, self-identity, religion, national pride, national identity, patriotism….the list can go on and on.
i wanted to like it but i couldn’t. i appreciated the issues touched in this story, but i felt there were too many characters for me to remember, their thoughts, their flashbacks and it doesn’t help that the storyline moves backwards. it’s like i already reached the peak of the story (at the start) and then i had to be thrown back through the memories of the day. it’s a bit hard for me to follow.
throughout the hours backwards, felt like wren was lost somewhere, hugh’s lines seems repetitious, and the rest became a blur, beth’s seemed like a sideline and doesn’t seem to be on the same ‘hours’.
i probably could understand the flow of the story and would have feel the characters’ emotions and fear better if it had follow the normal sequence of the day instead of ‘turning back’ time. it really felt like the longest day that doesn’t seem to end while reading it.
it was quite disappointing because i had been looking forward to Picoult’s new novel since Small Great Things, which i had enjoyed and couldn’t seem to stop reading.
I wanted to love this book. I think i pretty much enjoyed the first few pages and having the same eagerness of finding life in campus. but then i find it a bit too tedious to carry on. and what make it worst…i turned to the last page…and the last paragraph really hit me.
“….They had let me down. I hadn’t learned what I had wanted to about how language worked. I hadn’t learned anything at all.”
and with that, i see no point in continuing…at the moment.. perhaps i will take it up again and indulge in it.
i felt somehow grateful and sure i made a good choice to start the yeear reading Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. it was such a good book.
in what feels like light reading, it was serious enough to talk about apartheid from a boy who experienced it all, the hardships and the ‘almost like going through math problems’ calculated choices he made just because of the skin he has.
i appreciated how he starts a chapter with an educated article on the history and the basis of why things happened the way they are, before going to share a real life experience that reflects the message he wanted to share about earlier on. it is such an honest autobiography.
i also grow to love his mother too. i admire that grit and strong determination she had throughout her life,is beyond words. a rebel but towards positivity, because she wanted to make a better life. a strict mother out of pure love. and God is with her through that shooting ordeal. it was one word. miracle.
it is already in the list of books i dont mind rereading if all else fails.
living seri 