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A review by wchereads
The Silence That Binds Us by Joanna Ho
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
5.0
Location: sob city
Population: me
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I weep a little whenever I read a YA book that effortlessly conveys things that took me years to understand or even learn about in the first place. I can't help but wish that I had a book like this when I was a teenager.
This book tackles so many things so beautifully: the invisibility of mental illness; how grief muddles the passage of time; the difficulty of communicating with a parent who isn't all that great at communicating themself, not to mention over language and cultural barriers... The protagonist, May, has really got a lot on her plate. She's got a whole journey ahead of her; thankfully, she did not have to do it alone. She has her best friend Tiya and plenty of new connections to discover. The friendship between May and Tiya is instantly likeable and their back and forth made me laugh out loud so many times, despite the heaviness of the themes. I absolutely adored May, Tiya and crew. Have I mentioned how much I cared about the characters? Halfway through the book, I started dreading what might next so much that I had to put the book down. May, Tiya and crew were like my dear friends at that point and my anxiety came up with so many ways that things could go wrong. I stress-started and devoured a romcom that made me giggle uncontrollably the entire time and that finally gave me the courage to face the rest of the book. More on the romcom in another review. (Spoiler: the rest of the book was not as bad as I feared, even if I was crying by the end anyway. Oof. The writing. The expression of grief. The absolute FORCE it hit me with.)
One thing I wanted to focus more on in this review (before I got sidetracked by my love for the characters) is the lesson of solidarity. Anti-Asian racism sucks and me and my (Chinese) friends can definitely agree on that. However, some of my friends do not yet understand how all of "our histories are connected" and that anti-Asian racism affects them as much as, for example, anti-Black racism. It is the same racism, the same system. It is capitalism crashing down on all of us, and we need to uplift all of us, including the most marginalized. None of us are free until all of us are free. It is painful to have conversations with them about racism especially when they perpetuate racism themselves. No, the reason why your job sucks is definitely not because of employees newly immigrated from other countries who still may be getting used to living in a western society.
I am glad that I had my own awakening in the recent years, and I am glad that I read this book and went through May's journey with her, both in terms of healing with grief and overcoming internalized racism to be in solidarity with everyone.
Population: me
---
I weep a little whenever I read a YA book that effortlessly conveys things that took me years to understand or even learn about in the first place. I can't help but wish that I had a book like this when I was a teenager.
This book tackles so many things so beautifully: the invisibility of mental illness; how grief muddles the passage of time; the difficulty of communicating with a parent who isn't all that great at communicating themself, not to mention over language and cultural barriers... The protagonist, May, has really got a lot on her plate. She's got a whole journey ahead of her; thankfully, she did not have to do it alone. She has her best friend Tiya and plenty of new connections to discover. The friendship between May and Tiya is instantly likeable and their back and forth made me laugh out loud so many times, despite the heaviness of the themes. I absolutely adored May, Tiya and crew. Have I mentioned how much I cared about the characters? Halfway through the book, I started dreading what might next so much that I had to put the book down. May, Tiya and crew were like my dear friends at that point and my anxiety came up with so many ways that things could go wrong. I stress-started and devoured a romcom that made me giggle uncontrollably the entire time and that finally gave me the courage to face the rest of the book. More on the romcom in another review. (Spoiler: the rest of the book was not as bad as I feared, even if I was crying by the end anyway. Oof. The writing. The expression of grief. The absolute FORCE it hit me with.)
One thing I wanted to focus more on in this review (before I got sidetracked by my love for the characters) is the lesson of solidarity. Anti-Asian racism sucks and me and my (Chinese) friends can definitely agree on that. However, some of my friends do not yet understand how all of "our histories are connected" and that anti-Asian racism affects them as much as, for example, anti-Black racism. It is the same racism, the same system. It is capitalism crashing down on all of us, and we need to uplift all of us, including the most marginalized. None of us are free until all of us are free. It is painful to have conversations with them about racism especially when they perpetuate racism themselves. No, the reason why your job sucks is definitely not because of employees newly immigrated from other countries who still may be getting used to living in a western society.
I am glad that I had my own awakening in the recent years, and I am glad that I read this book and went through May's journey with her, both in terms of healing with grief and overcoming internalized racism to be in solidarity with everyone.