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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was a difficult book to read, and definitely not a good book to read right before bedtime. It's about a family who lived through Japanese occupation during WWII, and the trials this family had to endure. It also tells about Cecily, the mother, who harbors a lot of guilt for her actions leading up to the Japanese occupation, circa 1935-38. After Japan surrendered to the US in August, they still occupied Malaysia until early September. Afterwards, the British came back to colonize, so it's a very difficult (and not often told) story and hardship. I learned a lot, and I enjoyed the author's prose.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual violence, War
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
sad
slow-paced
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
#𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤
📖𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒎 𝑾𝒆 𝑴𝒂𝒅𝒆, 𝑉𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑛
3.5/5 ☆ #andreeareviews
The Storm We Made is a historical fiction novel that centres on a hideous side of WWII that is not depicted enough in fiction: the atrocity of Japanese occupation in Asia, the empire intending to replace the British occupation in the area. I enjoyed reading the book, however, it left me wanting for more (in character development in particular).
While Germany was leading one of the world’s most atrocious genocides in Europe, Japan committed horrors in the East that made it one of the most cruel occupiers in history (if you haven’t yet, read about the Nanjing Massacre from 1938). The Storm We Made tells the story of the Japanese occupation of Malaya, from 1941 to 1945. We learn the story from the points of view of the Alcantara family, mainly Cecily (the mother), and her three children: Jujube (17 years old), Abel (15) and Jasmin (7).
The story starts in 1945, in Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, which is under Japanese occupation. People are in survival mode, hungry (food ratios are little and scarce), living under curfew (if you miss it you get jailed or beaten up), or plain disappearing, if any connection with the Brits is suspected. Disappearances started to happen to boys that are a bit older (from 14 up), and desperate parents make efforts in vain to find their children, but once gone, a boy is never seen again. With her three children, Cecily lives in fear and does her best to protect them, but her best is not enough; her son, Abel, vanished, just like other boys, the day he turned 15. Stricken by grief, but also guilt, Cecily falls into despair.
To understand Cecily’s guilt, we need to go back to 1937, where we find her sharing British intelligence (her husband, Gordon, was an official for the Brits in Malaya) with General Fujiwara, a Japanese undercover who will lead the invasion of Malaya. Cecily, presented as a plain, unhappy housewife and mother is not someone you would expect to be a spy. Even more, we find out she is in love with the general and will move on to have an affair with him and make a decisive contribution to the Japanese invasion.
It is very easy to dislike Cecily; she appears to be a disgruntled wife, ungrateful for the life she leads and her own comfort and social position, bland in apparition and personality, and she chooses to betray her husband and her country. However, Fijiwara sold Cecily a dream of Asia run by Asians, freedom from over one hundred years of British occupation. Moreover, he offered her a higher purpose, treating her as an equal and making her feel she was more than the box society forced her into. I found myself sympathetic toward her, understanding her need for a higher purpose, to be more, and to do more without being able to do so. I believe her falling in love with Fujiwara was more related to how she saw herself while working with him rather than his charm or looks. Nevertheless, her choices have brought an oppressor that was more cruel than the Brits and Cecily and her family will suffer dire consequences.
Abel’s disappearance throws the entire family in disarray. Gordon’s health is dwindling, and Cecily stops talking and falls into depression. The older sister, Jujube, works in a teahouse and does her best to bring extra resources into the home. Having, somewhat, of a deeper understanding of their circumstances and seeing her family falling into despair, she takes the burden of taking care of them and musters deep anger and despair herself. On the other hand, Abel finds himself in a labour camp a the Burma/Thailand border, where he suffers profound emotional and physical abuse. He finds comfort in alcohol and becomes addicted to it. Jasmin, the youngest, has to be locked in the basement as the Japanese soldier recruits very young girls as comfort girls (as they do not get pregnant and fight less).
Cecily carries the guilt and the burden of her secret life that supported the current journey but her breakdown starts when Abel is taken and fully envelopes her when Jasmin runs away. Trapped in the basement during the day, Jasmin is bored; luckily, during the night she sneaks out and makes a new friend of her age. Yuki is Japanese and lives in the comfort shack with other girls. The two find comfort in each other and grow a friendship that turns out to be dangerous for both. Jujube finds out Jasmin runs out at night and locks her in the basement, in complete darkness for a few hours. This is enough for the little girl to run away from home the moment she escapes the basement. Her running away has tragic consequences for the family.
While I love the historical setting in Malaya, and I think we need more writers to focus on the WWII horrors in Asia, I was left wanting more both from the characters and from the story itself. I felt there was more to say about Malaya, both about the British and the Japanese occupations. I felt that the main points feel strongly on stereotypes (locals obsessed with whiteness, discriminating against darker skin, British being overtly racist, etc). Moreover, all the characters felt flat and underdeveloped. Many times, I felt the character’s actions made no sense in the context or I didn’t have enough background information to understand why they would do such a thing (for example, Jasmin’s running away from home, Jujube’s relationship with the kind Japanese professor and the related ending). On top, despite the compelling, the storytelling is fractured by the change in point of view; as we go back to the previous characters, we do not find them where we left them either.
Finally, I think this is a good historical book and must be read, to learn about this part of the world that is missing from historical fiction works. I recommend it if you love historical fiction and books like Pachinko, for example. Also, Vanessa Chan is an author worth watching, and I will definitely read her future books! A great debut for a Malaysian author I would love to hear more from.
First of all, let me just say that this book definitely did not read like a debut to me. The writing flowed beautifully, the characters were fully fleshed out and developed, and the historical as well as cultural details were meticulously rendered to the point that I felt completely immersed and transported to the time and place of the story (Japanese-occupied Malaya during WWII). One of the things I love about historical fiction is its ability to bring awareness to events / people / situations, etc., in history through the means of an engaging story, with the best ones often triggering a desire to read up on the subject matter more after finishing the book itself. In this case, even though I was already familiar with the Japanese occupation of various Asian countries during WWII (given my Chinese background, I grew up hearing endless stories about the antagonism between China and Japan during that time), I still felt compelled to read more about the events mentioned in the book (specifically, the Japanese invasion and occupation of Malaysia from 1941 to 1945). In her author letter, Vanessa Chan mentions her inspiration for the book being from her grandparents, who were initially reluctant to talk about those Occupation years, but ultimately relented and provided her with the many insights into how they survived that time period, many details of which she eventually incorporated into her story.
The angle that Chan ended up taking with this story — having it revolve around a wife and mother in British-colonized Malaya who provides intelligence to a Japanese general that ultimately ushers in a brutal occupation — was an interesting and unique one. When the story opens in February 1945, Cecily’s family is in a bad spot: her husband Gordon, formerly a high-ranking bureaucrat in the British-run colonial government, has been reduced to doing physical labor at a sheet-metal factory; her teenage son Abel has just disappeared, following the fate of other boys in the town who were kidnapped to a camp guarded by Japanese soldiers; her youngest daughter Jasmin has to hide in the basement all day to avoid being recruited into service at the comfort stations; and her eldest daughter Jujube is pushed to the brink of madness trying to protect her little sister while also attempting to maintain order in the household. Seeing her family coming apart at the seams, Cecily understands that this is all her doing — we are then taken back to 10 years earlier, where we get Cecily’s backstory and how she came to meet the man who would change her life forever: Shigeru Fujiwara, a charismatic Japanese general who convinces Cecily to work with him to achieve the goal of “Asia for Asians” by overthrowing the British colonial government in Malaya. Their efforts prove successful and the Japanese invade a few years later. Unfortunately, the Japanese occupiers turn out to be cruel and callous, killing “more people in three years than the British colonizers had in fifty.” The rest of the story alternates between these two time periods as well as between the perspectives of Cecily and her three children, with the timelines eventually merging as the war comes to an end and we see the impact of Cecily’s actions on both her family as well as on the community at large.
This was one of those books that I almost finished in one sitting, as the story was so compelling that I found myself unable to stop turning the pages. With that said however, this was also a difficult and exhausting read due to the heavy subject matter — while this was expected given the premise going into it, what I didn’t expect was the emotional depth of the characters, who were each written in ways that made it hard not to feel for them in some capacity, despite their actions. As I was reading, I was honestly preparing myself to hate both Fujiwara and Cecily, but when I got to the end, well, let’s just say that I had to rethink my feelings about them (and I’m still thinking about it, even now).
One of the things that also struck me about this book was how much I resonated with certain aspects of it — not the parts about espionage or the war of course, but rather the complexity of the feelings and circumstances that inform some of the characters’ decisions. I think this complexity is best described by Chan herself in her author’s note where she states: “I wrote about inherited pain, womanhood, mothers, daughters, and sisters, and how the choices we make reverberate through the generations of our families and communities in ways we often can’t predict. I wrote about carrying the legacy of colonization in your body, about being drawn to a toxic man, about complicated friendships, about living a life in fragments, about the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake.” Indeed, I can relate to nearly all of these things due to having encountered them in some form in my own life. Perhaps this is also why I was able to empathize with many of the characters, even the unlikable ones who made the worst of decisions — with Cecily specifically, her actions were inexcusable and unforgivable of course, but she also paid the ultimate price for what she did…whether what she endured was punishment enough, that will be for each reader to determine.
Received ARC from Marysue Rucci Books via NetGalley.