Reviews

Impractical Uses of Cake by Yeoh Jo-Ann

yuzureads's review against another edition

5.0

This book was beautifully written without being too intelligently incomprehensible/intimidating. Sukhin and the homeless woman from his past (his ex-girlfriend, Jinn) become key points of contrast throughout the novel, as we see Sukhin’s materially fulfilled, stable “Singapore dream” life and how empty his life feels to him, who has to drag out a daily, isolated existence. In contrast, Jinn didn’t fall into bankruptcy and find herself on the streets, but made the conscious choice to live the way she does - yet her life seems more fulfilling that Sukhin’s. Several times in the book, we learn more and more about the “invisible” homeless network in Singapore, the ones who fall through the cracks because they aren’t meant to exist, all this done without dramatising or relying on “poverty porn.” I can’t coherently express what I loved about this book, but I finished it wondering what I could take away from it and its characters, finding a lot of myself in its trapped and disgruntled protagonist (funny how our names are similar), and wishing I too, could disappear from the world and experience life of anonymity, un-bogged-down by my past and expectations of normality. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.