This is not a book for everyone. But i LOVED it.

Its quiet dark, it talks about topics that not a lot of people enjoy talking about.

This book talks about losing the favourite child of a family -and what happens to come to that point and what happens after the death.

We get parts of the parents history, how they meet, how they start a family and than we get parts where Lydia (the one that dies - NOT A SPOILER THAT IS THE FIRST SENTENCE IN THE BOOK!) is alive and parts where she is dead.

So basically we get all the "important" parts of the family life and how certain events changed their dynamics, lives and general perspective on and off life.

I personally LOVED the writing style.
I loved the switch between the times, that seems to completely effortless and made -in my option- perfect sense.
I loved getting the specific parts of the times we got.

I loved getting the backgrounds on the parents, why they behaved the way they did, how they became the kind of parent they are in the book, maybe because it is so rare to see parents in books at all, maybe because in so many books parents are "bad" but we never get the background into WHY. What happened in their lives that made them behave as they do in the book?
Why are they treating their children as they do?
Why are they in that kind of marriage?
How did they even come together, especially if it seems in some parts of the story so unlikely that they would ever even like each other enough to even start a relationship let alone enter a marriage or even think about starting a family together.

I just think it was wonderfully done by Ng, who find this perfect balance on giving us just enough details to understand but not enough to get bored or be able to actually predict the story more than the author wanted the reader to see ahead.

I also loved how different every single character in this book was.

every child is different, every parent is not as the one described before!
Think about how often that actually happens in books!
How often do we actually get na actual mixture of different character that do not seem way to similar to each other, or where the siblings all kind of blend together, every single parent in a book (if they are even mentioned at all) seems to be the same kind of cardboard cut out personality.

This book does not do that at all.

And what i loved even more than just getting unique characters, was how they all seemed to play roles they thought they had to play even if they always seems to want to be someone else entirely. And so in a way all the characters didn't just have one specific characteristic specific to them, but actually at least two, since almost all of the characters -at least every single on in the family themselves- has at least a "hidden" side to their character that they don't really show the rest of the family.

I thought that was BRILLIANTLY done!


The story plot itself isn't something completely unique or special. Its more or less a pretty typical problematic family story.

BUT i loved the little spins Ng put on the well known plot to make it just this tiny bit different and with that a newer reading experience.
I might edit this again and add a spoiler thing-y and go into details on what exactly it is but i just loved that its not always predictable how people reacted to what they see, learn or get told. That not all characters do what we expect them to do or how to behave.

I also LOVED that we have a mother in this that dreamed about becoming a Doctor. And that she never really was able to let go of that dream.
Because that is just so incredibly realistic.
If you dream to go into the medical field? And you don't at least end up somewhere in it? You will ALWAYS think about the "coulda, shoulda, woulda" situations.
And so how she behaved? that just made so much sense to me in so many ways!

I also LOVED that we have a "mixed" family in the time period the book is set in.

That clearly makes this story stand out.

Who would actually be bold enough to write a book set in the 1950s and let a blond American girl marry and have children with an asian looking man, even if he is an American?
I am not saying that it should be done! I am saying it is done way to little and i loved that it is not this fairytale story because Ng took this step and actually paired not just two white people together.

I also loved how she included the racial elements into the story.
They never took over the story.
BUT they where clearly in it.
They where not necessary surs. BUT its clearly in there that its a time where a "mixed" couple or family is not really worth as much as a "Pure" white one.
sadly thats just the truth. So it fits into the story. But it was great to see that while Ng included those elements, she never let them overtake the story. She didn't suddenly make this book into one discussing racism. Or issues of "mixed" raced families or children growing up, about the expectations of that or anything like that.

She kept it the book on the actual plot.
And sadly, that is pretty rare! Most author that actually try their hand on this type of plot point get a bit lost and suddenly write a 100 pages about the issues growing up not looking like everyone else around you and what kind of pressure that can put on you and your family.
And while i know that is true, this type of writing still has its time and place. And thankfully Ng knew that and i loved that.


Anyone notice i loved the novel yet?
No?
Mhm... must have done this review wrong.

Lets go on than.

I really thought the sibling relationship was done FAN-Freaking- TASTIC!
They love each other, clearly. But they also hate each other, clearly.
Still they try to help each other out, but at the same time... they do not know how far they want to take that help.
On one hand you want to see them go and basically never come back, but at the other hand how can you even begin to imagine what life is like without them constantly around you? And so while the siblings in the book can at one side not wait to see the other go, they also are already incredibly sad and heartbroken about knowing that one of them will leave.
I think thats about as realistic as you can get with siblings.
You love to hate them. (or maybe thats just me)

The ending.
I KNOW that is probably one of the things a lot of people HATE about this book.
I personally LOVED it.
Its realistic. Its real life.
You don't get every detail. You don't get everything you want. It just kind of ends... and a next section starts. And it think that fits perfectly into this book and how the entirety of this book was done.

There are of course little moments that i thought were not necessary.
What the dad does after the funeral?
Not necessary. I get why Ng included it. But why does every book has to have those moments?
Can't we just tell a story without those?
Especially since it didn't really seem actually necessary for the overall ending of it.

I also didn't love that we never actually learn what really happened to Lydia.
Did she really kill herself? Or is her mom right and she was not alone?
And if she did kill herself, what exactly gave her that final little push to make her do it? Why than, why like that?
I didn't want a complete detailed list but i would have loved to get a bit more on the why. I am pretty big on the why.
And since most of the rest of the book gave a lot of answers to that question it irritated me a bit that we didn't get at least a real hint as to why for Lydia.


Still all in all??

LOVED this book.
Kind of love the author.
Defiantly one i will try everything she writes from now on.

her writing is not for everyone.
So i Won't say here that everyone should go out and read this.

Because that is not this type of book or author as far as i can tell from the two books i read by her.

She writes specific family stories.

The darker variety. The one that not everyone will love, apprentice or "get".

BUT i KNOW there are a lot of people out there that enjoy the slightly more edgy family stories. The ones that seems this tiny bit more real because we don't have the perfect mom that is always happy and smiling, or the dad that always wants to play and goof around. The children that are not always laughing and running around happily but rather have this edge to them, this sharpness that makes it all seems so much more realistic.

So if you love the actual realistic family story, that has a bit of a bite, a bit of an edge, a story line that you will remember and think about and will not leave you right after you finish reading it?
Read this book.

You might not love it as much as i did.
But you will still get something out of it.