A review by jayisreading
Tongueless by Lau Yee-Wa

dark tense medium-paced

3.5

My feelings are a bit all over the place for this novel. On the one hand, I was so fascinated by the cultural and political tensions simmering from start to finish in this novel. The focus on language and how it was weaponized at an elite school in Hong Kong had my attention (but I also say this as someone who adores anything to do with languages). I have some familiarity with Hong Kong’s fraught relationship with China to understand some of the suspenseful and psychological nature of the novel, but it really helped to have the translator’s notes at the end to better contextualize the plot and characters. I would also be really curious to know how this novel reads in the original Chinese, especially after reading Feeley’s explanation about the language choices Lau made to capture Hong Kong’s linguistic landscape. This is all to say that there are so many layers to this novel when it comes to language, and I have no doubt that I missed quite a lot of it because I don’t know the two languages that were mainly at play (Cantonese and Mandarin).

While I found the novel’s concept really interesting, unfortunately, I really struggled to push through the story. This was in part because the protagonist, Ling, was just so unlikeable due to her shallowness and lack of introspection. I realize Lau intentionally wrote her protagonist like this, but it really frustrated me. Furthermore, while one of the major plot points is the suicide of one of Ling’s colleagues (which is mentioned at the start, so this review remains spoiler-free, aha), I do feel that other than this particular event, not much else happens. Instead, the reader is just left to sit with a lot of building tension that doesn’t quite go anywhere. I will say that I think this approach works well for the kind of story Lau wanted to tell, but it just wasn’t one that I wanted at the time of reading this book.

Ultimately, I do think Tongueless is worth checking out, but it’s one of those books I feel you have to be in the mood for.
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