General fiction novel set in Singapore about family, career, love and identity
Content warning: alcoholism, family violence, fatphobia
It was time for my next running book and the title of this one caught my eye. I have spent a lot of time living in South-East Asia and I absolutely adore cooking with and consuming all soy sauces, so I was keen to see what this book was like. It was also mercifully short.
Image is of “Soy Sauce for Beginners: a novel” by Kirstin Chen performed by Nancy Wu. The audiobook cover is of an Asian woman with black hair tied messily in a bun. She is facing away, and there is a floral design that blends into her neck.
“Soy Sauce for Beginners: a novel” by Kirsten Chen and narrated by Nancy Wu is a general fiction novel set primarily in Singapore. Gretchen has moved back to Singapore leaving behind her marriage and career in San Francisco, USA. The family business is making premium soy sauce and, after moving back in with her parents, Gretchen also finds herself with a ready-made job and all the perks. However, while Gretchen struggles to face the reality of her mother’s alcoholism and her failing marriage, she is also forced to confront the truth of what is happening within the family business.
This was an easy book to listen to. Chen’s straightforward writing style and Wu’s flexible narration worked well together. I think the highlights for me were definitely the scenes set in the soy sauce factory, and learning more about how different flavours and styles are achieved through different fermenting techniques. Singapore is such a dynamic country, and I always enjoy reading books set there, so it was an interesting to read a perspective from a character who is resentful to be home.
However, there were a few things that didn’t quite land for me in this book. Although the premise was fairly uncomplicated, I did find it hard staying invested in the story towards the end. While I appreciate this book was published nearly 10 years ago, I did find a lot of the commentary about weight, especially Gretchen’s friend Frankie’s former weight, quite grating. Chen deliberately doesn’t always portray Gretchen in an especially positive light, and I understand this book is about personal growth, but it did feel at times to be to such an extent that it was hard to empathise with Gretchen.
A heartfelt book that maybe just needed a dash more soy sauce.
Literary fiction novel about an asylum seeker in Sydney whose visa has expired
Content warning: racism, exploitation, family violence, torture
This was one of the books for Asia Bookroom‘s book group this year that unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend this one. I read another book by this author and really enjoyed it, so even though I missed the book group I was still very keen to read it.
Photo is of “Amnesty” by Aravind Adiga. The paperback book is standing between an orange bottle of Mr Muscle cleaner and a vacuum cleaner attachment. In the background is the vacuum cleaner and in the foreground is a yellow cleaning cloth.
Literary fiction novel about an asylum seeker in Sydney whose visa has expired
Content warning: racism, exploitation, family violence, torture
This was one of the books for Asia Bookroom‘s book group this year that unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend this one. I read another book by this author and really enjoyed it, so even though I missed the book group I was still very keen to read it.
Photo is of “Amnesty” by Aravind Adiga. The paperback book is standing between an orange bottle of Mr Muscle cleaner and a vacuum cleaner attachment. In the background is the vacuum cleaner and in the foreground is a yellow cleaning cloth.
“Amnesty” by Aravind Adiga is a literary fiction novel about a young man known as Danny who lives in Sydney and works as a cleaner. With blonde-tipped hair, an anglicised nickname, a local girlfriend and his portable vacuum cleaner, Danny has been working hard to make a new life for himself after his application for refugee status as a Sri Lankan was denied and his temporary visa expired. Danny spends his days cleaning, meeting up with his girlfriend and dealing with his landlord whose shop he lives on top of. However, one day, Danny finds out that one of his clients has died and that police are involved. Danny gets a call from the doctor she was having an affair with to come clean the apartment she was let him stay in. He keeps calling and calling and Danny is faced with a difficult choice: go to the police and have his visa status discovered or do nothing.
This was a tense, cramped type of book that follows the events of a single day. Adiga uses an interesting narrative structure where the books is broken down into elapsing periods of time, sometimes as small as a single minute, to show how Danny is grappling with the events as they are unfolding. Agida really centres this story in Sydney, but in a Sydney that not everyone experiences. Through Danny’s eyes we see opportunity, diversity and natural beauty but we also see poverty, exploitation and inequality. This is a cuttingly insightful book that unpeels a corner of Australia’s asylum seeker policies and shows not only the hardline stance towards asylum seekers, but also how the economy is propped up by the underpaid labour of people like Danny.
However, despite the cleverness of this novel, I didn’t always find it especially readable. Adiga’s focus on the minutiae of Danny’s life was at times claustrophobic. He builds and builds the tension without relief and the streets of Sydney feel more and more oppressive.
An intelligent yet uncomfortable reminder of the way asylum seekers are treated in Australia.
Contemporary fiction about bushfires and unexpected fame
I received a copy of this courtesy of the publisher.
Image is of “Burnt Out” by Victoria Brookman. The eBook cover is sky blue with a hand holding a match that has a woman’s face wearing sunglasses in the flame.
“Burnt Out” by Victoria Brookman is a novel about a young woman called Cali who is on the brink. She is on the brink of losing her marriage, losing her publisher, losing her cat and losing her home to bushfires. When disaster strikes, Cali’s impassioned plea to the government to take action against climate change goes viral and she finds herself offered the chance of a lifetime: a writer’s retreat at a billionaire’s pool house right on Sydney Harbour. Her patron Arlo is as handsome as he is wealthy, and with a brand new book idea, it seems as though Cali has landed on her feet. However, soon her situation begins to feel like a gilded cage and Cali begins to second-guess her creative decisions and long for for the peace and friendship she left behind in the Blue Mountains.
I obviously did not read the description of this book closely enough because when I first started reading it, I thought it was a non-fiction book about burnout, chronic work-related stress that I can definitely relate to. I was, therefore, a bit surprised to find that it was a general fiction novel with a touch of romance. I went to the Blue Mountains last year to support my husband run an ultramarathon, and the year before to stay with a friend, and I thought that Brookman wrote beautifully and convincingly about the terror of having a bushfire at your doorstep. When I went to visit in winter 2020, it was pretty shocking seeing how close the fires got to my friend’s house and the slightly monstrous sight of gumtrees furred with new leaf growth all over their trunks and branches. I felt that Brookman really captured the altitude and the culture of the Blue Mountains and the juxtaposition between the alpine region and the city of Sydney so nearby.
Image is of a burnt gumtree stump that has new growth with trees in the background furred with leaves all over their branches.
However, this book didn’t have the hot romance of “The Dangers of Truffle Hunting” with its equally unrealistic creative opportunities or or the deep contemplation of “Hare’s Fur” also set in the Blue Mountains. While there were moments in the book that were powerful, I found myself frustrated with Cali’s character. I felt that she made some ethical decisions that I was just not on board with, and her slight guilt wasn’t enough to dissuade her and there ultimately were no consequences for her actions. My favourite character in the book was Cali’s neighbour Spike, but he really got the short end of the stick in my opinion and was way too cool about it. In fact, several of the people within Cali’s orbit got the short end of the stick except for Cali’s whose main talent appeared to be ranting about climate change (without any qualifications whatsoever) after being plied with a couple of glasses of champagne.
An easy to read novel centred on the hard-hitting topic of bushfires and climate change, but that was lacking the kind of morality and characters that I was hoping for.
Literary novella about friendship between two African American girls
Content warning: encouraging suicide, trauma
At the end of last year, I was deep into my Short Stack Reading Challenge and this book was in my pile. I can’t quite work out where it came from. A second-hand bookstore? The Lifeline Book Fair? Borrowed? It doesn’t have any prices on it to give any hints. I’m wondering if perhaps it just arrived in my street library one day. Anyway, I have read a few books by this author, and this one won the 1993 Novel Prize for Literature, so I was keen to check it out.
“Sula” by Toni Morrison is a novella about two African American girls called Sula and Nel who grow up together in a poor black neighbourhood called The Bottom in Ohio, USA. Although inseparable, Sula and Nel have vastly different home lives. Sula lives with her sensual mother Hannah and magnetic grandmother Eva, with a stream of men, boarders and children coming through the house. Nel, on the other hand, has a much more straight-laced upbringing with her mother Helene who was in turn raised by her strict Catholic grandmother. The book starts in 1919 with each chapter a subsequent year, with sometimes one year passing and sometimes several, until 1965.
This is a deeply complex and at times almost surreal book with incredibly strong feminist themes. Morrison explores the intense and fraught relationships that develop between mothers and daughters, between grandmothers and granddaughters and between friends. I really liked how she tested the different types of love with betrayals, resentments and blame on both sides. Sula and Nel’s different approaches to men and relationships proves almost fatal to their friendship and it takes time and understanding before what was lost can even begin to be reconciled. The book has an interesting perspective because despite being set in America and The Bottom developing as a community in the wake of emancipation, the only mention of white America is at the very beginning of the story. Morrison provides some historical context to the segregated community and opens the novella by describing plans to turn the neighbourhood into a golf course.
I found that Eva and Shadrack were the two most fascinating characters, and despite their respective disabilities and trauma serve as the truthtellers of this story. A provocative character with lapses of indecency and his introduction of National Suicide Day which encourages rather than prevents suicide, WWI veteren Shadrack is nevertheless tolerated and accepted by The Bottom. He provides an interesting counterpoint to the main story as well as a unique lens through which to observe Sula who later becomes a similar type of outcast. Eva also appears to see right through Sula and Nel, and despite her own very idiosyncratic life and questionable decisions, passes easy on those around her. She is especially scathing of bystander apathy and those who “watch”. She proves that on the other hand, there is nothing she isn’t willing to do for herself, her home and her children – even if her ethics appear somewhat misguided.
An intricate novella with some very unique characters that still feels fresh nearly 40 years after publication.
Novel about Algerian women navigating life in a newly liberated nation
Content warning: suicide, family violence, sexual harassment, gender inequality, miscarriage, mental illness
I picked up this book at a Lifeline Book Fair some time back. I always like to browse the world literature section because it’s an ongoing goal of mine to read books by authors all around the world. This is the first book I’ve read by an Algerian author. As I was choosing books from my shelf last year for my Short Stack Reading Challenge, this one caught my eye and into the pile it went.
“Desperate Spring” by Fettouma Touati and translated by Ros Schwartz is about a number of Algerian women from different generations all connected by family and marriage. In the wake of the Algerian war of liberation, the traumas of past conflict and the tensions of the present create a challenging time for young women who must navigate traditional social values and their ambitions for education and independence. Faced with the choice between pursuing education and the cost of social acceptance, or accepting a marriage proposal and sacrificing independence and in many cases physical safety, the story follows the lives of these young women and how gender inequality undermines all their decisions.
This was a fascinating and heart-breaking book about a difficult era. I really liked Touati’s use of different sisters and cousins to explore and compare the consequences of their choices. When the opportunity arises for Fatiha to pursue further education, she eagerly seizes it, ignoring the pushback from her family in an attempt to distance herself from the horror inflicted by her traumatised father. However, she finds herself adrift and alone in a society not yet ready for independent women and unable to escape the pain of her past. Her cousin Yasmina also doggedly pursues her dreams of becoming a doctor, but her more stable upbringing and concession to tradition creates space for a little more happiness than her cousin. Yasmin’s sister Fatma, after completing some education, decides to marry rather than continuing her studies but her seemingly gentle young husband proves to be as entitled and violent as many other young men. Their cousin Malika, who grew up in Europe with more social freedom but with an extremely controlling mother, struggles to find her place in the world but is bolstered by the connection she makes with her cousins back in Algeria.
An intricate and unflinching book, and although in many ways it filled me with sadness and empathy for these women in impossible situations, this was an excellent introduction to Algerian literature.
Novel about friendship, sex and betrayal living in a university residential college
Content warning: sexual violence, relationship power imbalance, possible suicide
I have been doing significantly more running recently, so I have been getting through audiobooks a little more quickly than usual. I have seen this book being recommended and when I saw it was available as an audiobook, I got a copy without even finding out what it was about.
Image is of the audiobook cover of “Love & Virtue” by Diana Reid. The cover is of a two-headed pink and red dove, designed like a crest, against a forest green background. The dove has a sword and six love hearts on its chest, and above the heads floats a pink love heart with an eye in the centre.
“Love & Virtue” by Diana Reid and narrated by Emma Leonard is a novel set in a university residential college in Sydney. Scholarship student Michaela arrives in Sydney for her first year of university to live at the women-only Fairfax College. From Canberra, Michaela is a little set apart from her much wealthier friends from Sydney private schools. However, she throws herself into O-Week and campus drinking culture and soon makes friends with confident and opinionated Eve who lives in the room next door. They party together and have deep conversations about things like philosophy, misogyny and privilege. However, when their friendship is shattered by betrayals on both sides, Michaela finds herself having to reckon with the events of the past year and the harsh reality of campus life.
This is a fresh and authentic exposé of what it is like in the microcosm of a residential college in prestigious Australian university. Nearly 15 years ago I moved into a residential college myself and I was surprised at how much of the ritual and culture (except, of course, the ubiquitousness of social media now) still rings true. Drawing on her own experiences as a recent graduate, Reid’s story realistically explores the brittle friendships that form in these environments and the competitiveness and elitism among students. Toxic cultures on university campuses has been increasingly the subject of media storms with my alma mater (an elitist term right there) no exception. In her book, Reid explores the events that lead up to Fairfax’s own media storm and how the stripping of Michaela’s agency is almost worse than the trauma she can barely remember. The reader is asked to consider the morality of writing and publishing a story that is not your own, and the inevitable loss of control associated with either remaining anonymous or coming forward in a #MeToo moment.
At the same time, Reid explores the taboo of a student/professor relationship; slowly wearing away the gloss and power of an older man until what is left is just a man, banal in his mediocrity. I liked that Michaela was not a perfect character. She makes some ethically questionable decisions herself in both her studies and her relationship, and Reid captures the complexity of an 18 year old oscillating between extreme youth and mature intelligence very well. Leonard’s narration initially had a bit of a newsreader vibe to it but after only a chapter or two she found her stride and I found her very compelling with a bit of wry humour to her voice.
While I related a lot to Michaela’s shock of an essay mark in the 60s after coming from high school, I didn’t find the parts of the book about her studies, her quest for constructive feedback and her conversations about philosophy with other characters as interesting. I completely understand that the author was drawing on her own studies, but whereas the conversations with Eve about privilege were dissected internally by Michaela as either extremely insightful or downright hypocritical, the musings on philosophy did not really serve to move the plot or character development in the same way and felt more contrived. I found myself tuning out during Michaela’s conversations with the professor, and while her early conversations admitting her ignorance were believable, her intellectual sparring only a matter of weeks or months later seemed less so.
I think the pacing was not quite there either. Michaela puts an enormous amount of significance on a handful of individual events and courses, and seems to have an equally enormous amount of spare time where not a great deal was happening. I felt like either the sense that university is a blur of classes, working, studying, partying and meeting people could have been better captured, or a lot of the long conversations that weren’t contributing much to the overall plot could have been cut back.
I am enjoying reading books about ambition at all costs, and I thought that this book captured modern campus culture, what it means to be a victim and the spectrum of privilege well.
Novel set in India about a boy believed to be an incarnation of Vishnu
Content warning: suicide, family violence
I received a copy of this eBook courtesy of the publisher.
Image is of “Blue-Skinned Gods” by SJ Sindu. The eBook cover is blue with stylised lips, nose, eyes and eyebrows in gold.
“Blue-Skinned Gods” by SJ Sindu is a novel about a young boy called Kalki who lives in an ashram with his parents and his aunt, uncle and cousin Lakshman who is also his best friend. Kalki was born with blue skin and his father trains him as a spiritual healer. People come from far and wide to receive blessings from Kalki, believing he is the 10th human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. To prove his divinity, Kalki must past three tests. However, as Lakshman begins to doubt his authenticity, and his home life begins to deteriorate, Kalki finds himself asking whether he is truly a god, and if he isn’t, then who is he?
This was a fascinating book about power, belief and control in the context of a family. Sindu takes the real phenomenon of children with facial differences and genetic diversity being worshipped as gods by their communities and explores what the reality of such a life might be like. This is at times a very challenging book thematically, because the power Kalki’s father (‘Ayya’) has over the household is almost unshakeable. Sindu provides a realistic insight into how family violence can gradually escalate, how dangerous coercive control and emotional abuse can be and how difficult it can be to escape. Tied into this is the ashram itself as not only a place for locals to pay respects and seek blessings from Kalki as Vishnu’s avatar, but as a commercial spiritual retreat attracting international visitors and generating income as a result.
Kalki is an innocent, open-hearted character who, despite living in such a restrictive environment, demonstrates a huge capacity to love and accept people for who they are. Sindu introduces lots of diverse characters including the lovely Kalyani, a transgender girl, and later the many types of people Kalki meets in New York. I really liked how Sindu explores Kalki’s sexuality without ever pinning him down to a single label. Kalki’s relative innocence and lack of worldliness leaves him vulnerable to exploitation, and his attempts to understand more about his identity and make sense of his past are underwhelming as a result. Going back to Sindu’s focus on spirituality, I really liked that she examines the human desire to believe in different contexts and how tied belief can be to a tangible personality. Without giving too much away, one of my favourite parts of the book was Sindu turning an adoption stereotype on its head.
While I liked almost everything about this book, I think the ending was the only part where I felt a little let down. For almost the entire book, Sindu had left the reader with a measure of uncertainty about Kalki’s identity, and I think I would have found a slightly more ambiguous ending more satisfying.
A creative and surprising story that tackles some difficult issues and challenges preconceptions about identity, faith and family.
Mystery thriller novel about a water diviner who finds a lost girl
Content warning: kidnapping, sexual assault, Alzheimer’s disease
I picked up this book at the Lifeline Book Fair for one reason and one reason only: the tinted edges. Like many of the books I have been reviewing recently, this is another one that has languished on my to-read pile. So between all the fantasy, the books turned into adaptations and the other books with tinted edges, I decided it was time to read this one.
Image is of “The Diviner’s Tale” by Bradford Morrow. The paperback book is resting in grass next to a stick in the shape of an arrow. The cover is of a girl in a white dress standing in a misty, green forest. The book has blood red tinted page edges.
“The Diviner’s Tale” by Bradford Morrow is a mystery thriller novel about a woman called Cassandra who, between teaching classes in remedial reading and Greek myths and raising her twin boys as a single parent, has followed in her father’s footsteps as a water diviner. One day while dowsing land for a property, Cassandra sees the body of a young girl hanged from a tree. When she alerts the authorities, including her old friend and local sheriff Niles, and returns to the location the girl, all traces of her is gone. Cassandra is under a lot of stress with family challenges, and initially people think she must have imagined it. However, when a different girl emerges from the woods after being reported missing, Cassandra must acknowledge the visions that she has had since she was young, and face the traumas of her past before they catch up with her.
This was a readable, character-driven book that has a really strong sense of place. From Upstate New York to Mount Desert Island, Maine, Morrow engages deeply with the landscape and using Cassandra’s skills as a diviner to explore the geology and flora of the area was a unique way to do it. I liked the tension within Cassandra and her dad Nep between belief in the artform of dowsing and worry that they are nevertheless frauds. Cassandra of course is named after the Cassandra of Greek mythology, and while this isn’t the first modern day interpretation of Cassandra’s prophecies I’ve read, it was well done. I thought that his depiction of a parent living with Alzheimer’s disease was done well, and I loved Cassandra’s relationship with her twin boys, and their relationship in turn with their grandparents. I also liked that her kids Morgan and Jonah began to develop their own identities as the book progressed.
However, this is a dark book and the elements of her past that Cassandra tries to forget are very confronting. While thinking back on this book, it occurred to me that overwhelmingly Cassandra’s relationships were with men: her father, her sons, her ex-lovers and her friends. Her relationship with her mother is a little tense, and while I appreciated that she had a reputation for being a bit eccentric, I think perhaps I would have liked more women in this book (aside from Cassandra herself) than mothers and victims.
A well-written book that is hard-going thematically at parts.
Family drama novel about parents, poverty and isolation
Content warning: themes of control, parental death
I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher. This is actually the second book I have read by this author and I was looking forward to it.
Image is of the eBook cover of “Unsettled Ground” by Claire Fuller. The cover is a collection of colour flowers and fruit against a black background that on closer inspection appear to be wilting and rotting.
“Unsettled Ground” by Claire Fuller is a novel about twins Jeanie and Julius who unusually, at age 51, still live at home with their mother Dot in a small rural cottage in England. However when their mother suddenly dies, Dot’s carefully balanced, hand to mouth existence begins to crumble around them. The twins begin to realise just exactly how many secrets their mother was keeping from them, and how much she was keeping them from the rest of the world.
This is a disquieting novel that really resonated with me. When I was 18 years old, I lived in the West Midlands in the UK for about 6 months with relatives in a rural area, and Fuller really captured that village setting perfectly. Fuller unpacks in an incredibly realistic way how unnavigable society is for people who are disadvantaged, and examines in close detail the practicalities of life without access to a car, running water or electricity. I thought that Fuller handled writing about literacy difficulties especially well, and watching the recent TV documentary “Lost for Words” shortly afterwards helped me see just how accurately Fuller captured the stigma around lack of literacy but also the workarounds people develop to get by. The other thing I really liked about this book is the relentlessness of the life administration, even and especially in death, and how Dot doing everything for her children really left them unequipped to cope. Fuller pushes this scenario to its extreme, exploring each individual vulnerability to its limit while still remaining well within the realm of possibility.
While the setup for this book was extremely engaging, I’m not sure that in the end it landed. Fuller tiptoes around Dot’s character, and while I appreciate leaving some things to the imagination, there is never really much speculation about why she limited her children’s interaction with the outside world so much. Throughout the book, Jeanie and Julius learn more about their mother’s personal life through those closest to her, but never really why she had absolute control over the way the home was run and made absolutely no contingency plans whatsoever. Of course I accept that this happens all the time in real life, but in many ways Dot was the most interesting character in the book and we got only the faintest spectre. I also appreciate that people fall between the cracks, and it is hard to know what truly goes on in someone’s home. That being said, none of Dot’s friends seemed to think it was particularly strange that her two adult children in their 50s lived at home with her and had next to no life skills whatsoever.
Fuller proves again that she is a master of exploring the intricate and disturbing minutiae of an isolated life and if the ending is not full of drama, the journey certainly is.
Romance novel about escaping domestic violence and findinga new life
Content warning: domestic violence
I received a copy of this book courtesy of the author.
“Wild Horses on the Salt” by Anne Montgomery is a romance novel about Becca, a lawyer fleeing her abusive husband. She finds herself on a property in Arizona, USA that belongs to an old friend of her aunt’s who uses it as a guest house. Physically and emotionally bruised, it takes Becca time to open up about what has happened to her. The more she learns about the beautiful country she has found herself in and the environmental issues that threaten it, including the contentious mustangs, the more she begins to feel at ease among her new friends. Especially the handsome Noah. However, her husband is not about to let her go so easily, and Becca soon finds the safety of her new life under threat.
This is an interesting novel that sensitively approaches the issue of domestic violence. Montgomery explores the factors that can leave someone vulnerable to controlling relationships as well as the stigma, financial control and physical danger that make it so difficult to leave. From the outside, Becca is an intelligent, beautiful and successful woman and I think that books like these carry the important message that domestic violence can happen to anyone. This is a well-researched book, and Montgomery brings the Arizona landscape to life through the lens of Becca’s rediscovered passion for art.
However, there were some points in the book where Montgomery’s enthusiasm for description slowed the plot down a bit. The parts of the book that follow the journey of an unlikely pair, a stallion and a sheep, were interesting but I felt that thematically they could have been connected better to the main story as either a well-timed plot device or a clearer metaphor for Becca’s own journey.
A good approach to the difficult topic of domestic violence.
Tinted Edges 