The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng - Review

This was the June choice for my book club and I wasn't sure how I would like it. It's a really long book and I think it is a bit long in places, but it is an epic story so it did have a lot of story to tell. Rosa chose it and she's pretty new to our book club and hasn't chosen a book before so it was really interesting that she chose this. I can't wait to see what everyone else thought about it next week - well, after this post will go live, but I'm writing this before of course. 

So, the protagonist of the book is Philip. He is half Chinese and half English. He is brought up in Malaya by his English father and three older half siblings after his mother dies. His father owns a factory in Georgetown, on the island of Penang. He has rubber plantations and other business interests. It is the 1930s when Philip is young. War breaks out in 1939, of course, when Philip is about eighteen. 

But at the beginning of the book it's 1995, fifty years after the end of World War Two and Philip is invited to celebrate that with other people. He still lives in his parental home, Istana, where he grew up. He still works for his father's company and is now the ownder. He is somewhat distrusted in the local area because of his history. A woman called Michiko turns up at his house. She knows Endo, a Japanese man who taught Philip martial arts when he was a teenager, and for whom Philip worked during the war. He rented a small island from the family and his home is still there. He was a government employee. Michiko wants to know all about his life. She knew Endo too, when they were young. More of her history comes out but I won't spoil that because it was so interesting. 

Now, of course I knew that Japan was an enemy to the Allies in WWII and that it was allied with Germany and Italy, but I really don't know much of the history otherwise. I will assume that a lot of the history in this book is true; the author probably did plenty of research. The British are portrayed as having left Malaya undefended as soon as war broke out, and the Japanese took over and occupied the area. Endo's role obviously became more important Philip started working for him. Some people then saw him as a collaborator but it is more complicated than that. 

Philip felt like he wasn't part of his family because he had a different mother and was mixed race unlike his siblings. They are Edward, William, and Isabel. He does get to know William and Isabel more throughout the book, but they have complicated relationships. 

As for Endo - Philip really kind of worships him? I think there's some sexual overtones too between them. Endo teaches him martial arts but also how not to fight and not to be drawn into fighting. How to go zen. It's stuff that Philip will need for the rest of his life. I liked this part of it a lot, but I don't feel like we knew Endo enough. 

I liked Philip a lot and wanted what was best for him. He has a tough life and makes difficult decisions, not always for the right reasons. I'm giving this four out of five. 

The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon by Safinah Danish Elahi - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon by Safinah Danish Elahi! It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Please do click around and read some of my other reviews. I was intrigued by the premise of this book and am glad I signed up for the tour because I really liked it. 

The novel has three protagonists: Zohaib, his younger sister Misha, and Nadia. Zohaib and Misha grew up in relative wealth in Lahore, and Nadia was the daughter of one of their maids. She is between the two of them in age, and while they're friendly and while Misha and she often act like sisters, obviously there is a class difference between them and always will be. 

Misha's parts are in the past, when she was just a little girl of about eight. She is a spoilt child, but loved by her parents and family. Hers is a mostly easy childhood, coddled by her family. 

In the present time, Zohaib and Nadia are living lives literally and metaphorically thousands of miles apart. Zohaib is living in London. He has a friend, Talha, and a therapist that he sees often. He's about twenty six at this point I think. Talha is often worried about him and asks him to go trekking in Peru with him. Zohaib has mental health problems and clearly has a lot of past trauma. He is no longer close to his parents, who are now divorced, but both still in Pakistan. 

Nadia, also known as Nono, is living in poverty. She has an office job that she loves, but her husband is a drug addict and is out of work. She's pregnant and is sexually harassed by men in her office. She fears for the future and eventually heads back to her childhood home. 

It was obvious something bad had happened but I didn't guess what, which I did like, although I didn't guess exactly what. I really liked the setting of the book and could imagine the family home perfectly. I really liked Nadia as a character and wanted her to do really well. In all i'm giving this four out of five and am glad I joined in the tour for it!

Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin - Review

I picked this book up in February in Edinburgh. I was staying with a friend and she had to work, so one day I went to Portobello Bookshop in Portobello to spend a voucher that I had been given for my birthday. I picked up four books and this was one of them! It was actually the first book I picked up in the shop. Recently I've had a few books that I've 'had' to read and it's been a bit of a slog, so I picked this one up because I really wanted to read it. I wanted to treat myself, as it were. And I ended up loving it and sped through it, so it was the perfect thing I needed!

The book starts in 1978 in Vietnam. Anh, Minh, and Thanh are packing to leave. They are the eldest children in a family with seven children - Mai, Van, Hoang, and Dao - and their parents. The war has ended and many Vietnamese are leaving the country. Anh's dad's brother is already in the United States, in New Haven, so the family is planning to emmigrate, via Hong Kong. Anh and her brothers will go first, and the other six will follow soon behind. 

Anh, Minh, and Thanh arrive in Hong Kong and are taken to a camp. There they will stay, waiting for their parents. They make friends with a young boy in their hut, Duc, and his grandmother, Ba (I apologise for not being able to put the correct accents over the letters in some of these names). Then they are told that their family has died. Anh identifies the bodies of her parents and siblings; they are buried in Hong Kong. Workers from the camp ask Anh if she has any relatives in America but Anh says no because she blames her uncle for her dad wanting to leave Vietnam. She's angry with him, so says no. Because of that, the children's application for refugee status in the US is denied, and instead, they are sent to England.

They arrive into freezing cold weather and have to stay at first in a similar camp in the south. There they are taught English and experience snow for the first time. By this time Anh is about eighteen and the boys are at school. She is a seamstress. The family is moved to London, to a council flat in Peckham, not too far from Duc and Ba. They have to share the bed in the one bedroom there is. Minh kind of falls apart. Thanh is a clever student, but Anh isn't sure that she can get him to university. Anh works in a clothing factory. It's Thatcher's Britain, the mid 80s, and being an immigrant isn't easy. 

The book is quite a saga - it moves on vastly in time and we see Anh as a much older woman. I really liked her - she was trying to do the right thing by everyone all the time, while being extremely young and having lived through a ton of trauma herself. I liked her brothers too; I felt for both of them. It's not just a story about this family but it's about a lot of families who have lived through similar trauma and who have come to the UK for a safe haven. 

Part of the book is also sort of free verse from Dao's point of view - from the point of view of a small child who is now a ghost and who is watching his surviving siblings from the afterlife. I liked this - it points towards the family's religious beliefs and the ceremony that they perform to remember their dead ancestors. I love this stuff.

This is a brilliant book and I would urge you all to read it. I'm giving itr five out of five. 

A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton - Review

As I've done before, this is a review of an adult novel that I feel is also suitable for a younger audience. I recently read this book and loved it, and I think a discerning teenager would be able to enjoy it too. I read Memoirs of a Geisha when I was around 17, and I loved it. This novel is quite similar in tone.

Where did I get it? I bought it on Kindle for 99p.

What's it about? Amaterasu is an old lady, living in the United States in the 1980s, when a badly scarred middle aged man turns up at her door and tells her he is her grandson. Amaterasu believed that her daughter Yuko and her grandson Hideo were killed in the Nagasaki atomic bombing in 1945, and she and her husband Kenzo left Japan soon after to try to deal with their grief. The man at the door says that he is Hideo and he has letters from his adoptive father for Amaterasu. Through these letters, Yuko's diaries, and Amaterasu's memories, we're told the story of three generations, of Japan before, after, and during the Second World War, of secrets and lies that force a family apart and of the bombing that wasn't like any bombing before and which had such an impact on so many inhabitants of the city. 

I can't really give much more information about the book without giving things away! It's fanstatic, though. It was so worth the 99p I spent! 

What age range is it for? A discerning older teenager could definitely enjoy this, but be aware of the things noted below. 

Are any main characters LGBTQ+? No

Are any main characters non-white? Yes, as it's set in Japan. In fact there's some talk about how foreign Amaterasu always feels in the US even after living there for years. 

Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? Yes, there's some fairly graphic descriptions of the people who were hurt in the bombing, and their scars afterwards, and I'm pretty sure Amaterasu is suffering from some kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Is there any sex stuff? Yes, but it's talked about in very euphemistic terms. 

Are drugs mentioned or used? No

Is there any talk of death? Yes, some of it is quite graphic on the day of the bombing and afterwards. 

Are there swear words? No 

Would I recommend the book? Yes, definitely

How many stars? Eight out of ten.