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steveatwaywords's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I want very much to like this book more than I did, because there is so much that Truong does which is powerful, original, necessary. Others have written that this is a book of immersion, that a reader has to settle into the world and move along with the characters, enjoying them and discovering the tensions (and scandals) along the way. True; and combined with an unreliable narrator (Truong says it's an unreliable reader, but see below) who works candidly and sincerely with a form of synesthesia, who grows up with a family largely distanced and ever antagonistic towards her in the small-town American South, we want to understand her better, to discover along with her the "story."
All of this, during exposition and development in the first half of the novel, is almost compelling. Some will then say that the plot has twists and surprises; the blurb on the book suggests a secret past. But there is a difference between a character or narrator who discovers something to which she was blind and a narrator (or in this case, author) who deliberately withholds information in order to shock the reader. Truong's "twists," I think, lean far too heavily--even awkwardly--in this latter area. No plot-level, character-level or even larger thematic level of reason exists for this withholding; we learn nothing meaningfully significant from the twist nor does the character, because she has always known this information. Truong became, I think, too enamored of the idea of "surprising the reader" to recognize that her character had no reason to do so. Truong speaks in interviews of creating an "unreliable reader" and narrative "blank spaces" for us to fill in: it's a curious idea, and one certainly worth investigating narratively. Unfortunately, at its worst, it feels more like a badly-written M. Night Shyamalan script. Surprise for the sake of surprise only pollutes the rest of the story, as it largely did for me in the second half of the novel. I no longer even liked the characters.
Enough on that. If you like big "twists" simply for the fun of them, you need not find any of this a bad thing. Fortunately, the second half of the novel works hard to enrich some of the characters and strengthen the links between protagonist and a number of historical and literary themes (Virginia Dare, Wright brothers, etc.) along the way.
Finally, however, the final "twist" or secret past is only just this: a story withheld from the protagonist that she learns. Okay. Good for her, she heard it. But once again, there is little for the characters to grow from or that feeds the earlier challenges faced. What we do get as readers, satisfying enough, is an understanding of family and the narratives we inexpertly craft for them. This alone is reason enough to recommend the book, but with the caveats above. Truong makes it difficult on herself, I think: she deliberately offers us Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as a model, but then falls far short of it herself.
All of this, during exposition and development in the first half of the novel, is almost compelling. Some will then say that the plot has twists and surprises; the blurb on the book suggests a secret past. But there is a difference between a character or narrator who discovers something to which she was blind and a narrator (or in this case, author) who deliberately withholds information in order to shock the reader. Truong's "twists," I think, lean far too heavily--even awkwardly--in this latter area. No plot-level, character-level or even larger thematic level of reason exists for this withholding; we learn nothing meaningfully significant from the twist nor does the character, because she has always known this information. Truong became, I think, too enamored of the idea of "surprising the reader" to recognize that her character had no reason to do so. Truong speaks in interviews of creating an "unreliable reader" and narrative "blank spaces" for us to fill in: it's a curious idea, and one certainly worth investigating narratively. Unfortunately, at its worst, it feels more like a badly-written M. Night Shyamalan script. Surprise for the sake of surprise only pollutes the rest of the story, as it largely did for me in the second half of the novel. I no longer even liked the characters.
Enough on that. If you like big "twists" simply for the fun of them, you need not find any of this a bad thing. Fortunately, the second half of the novel works hard to enrich some of the characters and strengthen the links between protagonist and a number of historical and literary themes (Virginia Dare, Wright brothers, etc.) along the way.
Finally, however, the final "twist" or secret past is only just this: a story withheld from the protagonist that she learns. Okay. Good for her, she heard it. But once again, there is little for the characters to grow from or that feeds the earlier challenges faced. What we do get as readers, satisfying enough, is an understanding of family and the narratives we inexpertly craft for them. This alone is reason enough to recommend the book, but with the caveats above. Truong makes it difficult on herself, I think: she deliberately offers us Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as a model, but then falls far short of it herself.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Racial slurs, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, and Bullying
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