5 stars

I strictly read this book in public to ensure I wouldn't cry because it rubbed me open raw and bled me dry.
Alice Pung has a way with words that I deeply connected with, a form of worldbuilding that felt too real because those were the streets I walked not 2 years later, in the same Forges and Op shop clothes, a child following what now feels inevitable.
I wish I could say that I read this book as soon as I found out about it, but I put it off as much as I humanly could- until my Australian literature class- and I'm strangely glad because, in any other headspace, I would not have been able to finish this book. Now, not for any wrong reason, but because it was exactly what my childhood was like, though I don't think I'll ever feel this sense of finality that Alice has at the end of Unpolished Gem.

Thanks to my tutor for making me face my fears and getting me to read this book (not that it took much lol).