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tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition
3.0
‘I’m the one who’s in charge around here.’
Shan and Yannie, brother and sister, both aspire to attend university. But only Shan is able to. Yannie is required, as a dutiful daughter, to stay home to help in the family store, to look after her parents. Shan attends university. He finds success in the UK and then in Australia.
Her parents have gone into debt to support Shan’s pursuit of education. Yannie has two friends: Jun (who is unable to share his feelings) and Shuying, who distances herself after marrying. Yannie takes on work as a tutor. Yannie looks after her parents until they die. Her life is one of duty, carried out with barely suppressed rage.
With Jun’s help, Yannie travels to Sydney where her brother, his wife Evelyn and daughter Kat live. She and Evelyn become friendly. And Yannie quickly realises that Shan is (still) a bully. He controls his wife and daughter and aims to take over the company he works for. Shan is a perfect one-dimensional villain.
Yannie is a more complex character. She encourages her niece and longs for a relationship with Shuying. She wants Evelyn to recognise the price she is paying for the lifestyle Shan provides. She wants revenge on Shan. What form will it take, and what will the consequences be?
‘This is the point where fiction and reality must diverge. In real life, to disagree violently is usually a metaphor. Most human beings are lazy, conflict-averse and not especially imaginative. They stay out of trouble, defer to authority, and hope any anomalous situation will resolve without much intervention on their part. By contrast, characters in novels murder each other left and right for fairly trivial reasons.’
Ms Lim identifies so many issues in this novel including conformity with family expectations and roles regardless of the cost to the individual, the disregard for others exhibited by those who grow up without boundaries, the pain of lost opportunity, and the non-acceptance of same-sex relationships. I finished the novel wondering about the relative unfairness of life for Yannie and so many others.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Shan and Yannie, brother and sister, both aspire to attend university. But only Shan is able to. Yannie is required, as a dutiful daughter, to stay home to help in the family store, to look after her parents. Shan attends university. He finds success in the UK and then in Australia.
Her parents have gone into debt to support Shan’s pursuit of education. Yannie has two friends: Jun (who is unable to share his feelings) and Shuying, who distances herself after marrying. Yannie takes on work as a tutor. Yannie looks after her parents until they die. Her life is one of duty, carried out with barely suppressed rage.
With Jun’s help, Yannie travels to Sydney where her brother, his wife Evelyn and daughter Kat live. She and Evelyn become friendly. And Yannie quickly realises that Shan is (still) a bully. He controls his wife and daughter and aims to take over the company he works for. Shan is a perfect one-dimensional villain.
Yannie is a more complex character. She encourages her niece and longs for a relationship with Shuying. She wants Evelyn to recognise the price she is paying for the lifestyle Shan provides. She wants revenge on Shan. What form will it take, and what will the consequences be?
‘This is the point where fiction and reality must diverge. In real life, to disagree violently is usually a metaphor. Most human beings are lazy, conflict-averse and not especially imaginative. They stay out of trouble, defer to authority, and hope any anomalous situation will resolve without much intervention on their part. By contrast, characters in novels murder each other left and right for fairly trivial reasons.’
Ms Lim identifies so many issues in this novel including conformity with family expectations and roles regardless of the cost to the individual, the disregard for others exhibited by those who grow up without boundaries, the pain of lost opportunity, and the non-acceptance of same-sex relationships. I finished the novel wondering about the relative unfairness of life for Yannie and so many others.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
kimswhims's review against another edition
DNF at page 27
2021 Stella Prize Shortlist
Really not liking the third person narration about the awful things that a young girl's psychopathic brother and unsympathetic family are putting her through. Don't have the head space for this at the moment.
back to the library with it.
2021 Stella Prize Shortlist
Really not liking the third person narration about the awful things that a young girl's psychopathic brother and unsympathetic family are putting her through. Don't have the head space for this at the moment.
back to the library with it.
bristoni74's review against another edition
3.0
This was short-listed for the Stella Prize 2021. It’s about Yannie who is Malaysian and has a lot of potential and the unfairness she feels given her parents invest all their financial resources in her mediocre brother. As the daughter, she is expected to care for her parents, work in the family shop and put everyone else’s needs before her own while her brother goes to university. This is hard for her to accept because she is the clever one and her brother is a violent and nasty bully.
The title is probably misleading as it isn’t a thriller (although it is a story of revenge and murder) but rather story of East meets West with the story set in both Malaysia and Australia and the exploration of cultural and family expectations and values. I did enjoy how the book explored these themes. I also enjoyed how the author presents Yannie as outwardly conforming to her gender role, but inside she is angry and wants her revenge.
I did feel though that Yannie's life moves very quickly from childhood to adulthood and then to middle-age and the murder itself is strange – I didn’t really feel the impact of it. Also the ending/prologue didn’t also seem to be consistent with Yannie’s character. But I will definitely read more by this author.
The title is probably misleading as it isn’t a thriller (although it is a story of revenge and murder) but rather story of East meets West with the story set in both Malaysia and Australia and the exploration of cultural and family expectations and values. I did enjoy how the book explored these themes. I also enjoyed how the author presents Yannie as outwardly conforming to her gender role, but inside she is angry and wants her revenge.
I did feel though that Yannie's life moves very quickly from childhood to adulthood and then to middle-age and the murder itself is strange – I didn’t really feel the impact of it. Also the ending/prologue didn’t also seem to be consistent with Yannie’s character. But I will definitely read more by this author.
kaz14's review against another edition
3.0
Short listed for the Stella Prize 2021. The focus of this book is Malaysian born Yannie and her lifelong need/ambition to revenge the bullying she received from, and the parental favoritism given to, her older brother Shan. Located in both Asia and Australia, Revenge explores a number of subjects including familial, friend and romantic relationships, and the different expectations placed on male and female children within Malayan culture, or at least within this family. Because this short book covers a long period of Yannie's life I felt there was a lack of depth in places, in particular a skimming of the years between childhood and adult hood. Nevertheless an interesting and enjoyable read, although for me it is not quite of the caliber needed to win the Stella.