Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - The Storm We Made

This book is absolutely fantastic but also a tragic heartbreaker. Vanessa Chan's writing is beautiful and engaging. I could see what she was describing and I could smell the smells. I am looking forward to whatever she writes next.

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danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Set against the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of

Malaysia, a Malaysian woman makes a fateful decision which changes the course of history and the lives of everyone she knows.

I really enjoyed this book. I tend to love historical fiction that centers fictional characters against the backdrop of world events, and while fictional, 1 always feel like it gives us a glimpse into how this massive world events may have affected real people. This book did not disappoint on this front; in turns towering and intimate, this is a beautiful portrait of shattered promises, family bonds, and the tides of history that hurl themselves at the barriers of safety people try to erect around themselves and their loved ones.

It is a multi-perspective book, and sometimes 1 tound the switches happening too quickly, just as I would settle into whatever storyline 1 was following in a particular chapter. And I felt some storylines converged at the end better than others. But it was still a really great read.

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aberator's review

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challenging dark emotional

5.0

Exquisite writing.

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ashleysilver7's review

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dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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.

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aagyaprdhn's review against another edition

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challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

something about the structure just didn’t work for me - and it may also be that we don’t spend a lot of time with the characters, more so with their suffering - it felt very heavy and difficult to read at times.

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natalieba's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I ended up doing a combination of reading this on the page and listening to the audiobook, which I got from my library. The audiobook is well-narrated by Samantha Tan. The novel is told in dual timelines and tells a WWII story I was unfamiliar with - British-colonized Malaya in 1935 and the same area during the Japanese occupation at the end of WWII.

Much of the story is raw and almost hard to read - torture abounds and the author doesn’t shy away from drawing a detailed picture of what life was like for Malayans during the Japanese occupation. The family at the heart of the story has lived for years alongside trauma, pain, and terror, and it is impossible to read this story with any sense of hope - only the hope for survival. And is that even worth seeking out when so much has been destroyed? It was truly bleak.

I appreciate learning more about this (for me) uncovered aspect of WWII, knowing that these kinds of stories are no doubt happening in war-torn places today. But, despite claiming to touch on ‘pain and triumph’ (according to the publisher’s blurb), this novel seemed to only focus on pounding home the malicious, dark side of humanity. The blurb goes on to call the novel a ‘dazzling saga about the horrors of war’ and I don’t know how in the world the word ‘dazzling’ could be used to describe such a thing as war (or this book).

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