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A review by meggychiaaaa
After The Inquiry by Jolene Tan
3.0
This piece of Sing lit starts slow like an engine warming, then revs into full, unstoppable speed in the last quarter. It takes the structure of a ministry report written by Boon Teck, in the wake of a Russian Roulette game gone wrong within the police force.
The strength of this book lies in the way race, privilege, and inequality are put in the spotlight — they simply cannot be ignored or brushed aside. As a political science & sociology student myself, it was interesting to see these topics finally enter the sphere of Singapore fiction. I definitely recommend this to those of you who want to start thinking about the socio-economic landscape in Singapore, but find news and academia too intimidating.
While the text is structured as a government report, it comes loaded with footnotes and writing that sometimes feels disruptive and unnatural. It is nonetheless a bold attempt to fit big and important ideas into the span of 200 pages. I look forward to more works from Jolene Tan, and cannot wait to see how she brings big conversations to a world of fiction.
The strength of this book lies in the way race, privilege, and inequality are put in the spotlight — they simply cannot be ignored or brushed aside. As a political science & sociology student myself, it was interesting to see these topics finally enter the sphere of Singapore fiction. I definitely recommend this to those of you who want to start thinking about the socio-economic landscape in Singapore, but find news and academia too intimidating.
While the text is structured as a government report, it comes loaded with footnotes and writing that sometimes feels disruptive and unnatural. It is nonetheless a bold attempt to fit big and important ideas into the span of 200 pages. I look forward to more works from Jolene Tan, and cannot wait to see how she brings big conversations to a world of fiction.