A review by awhipp17
The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

i bought this book because i was curious about Malaysian culture and history and liked that this was from a young person's perspective (albeit about the civil war in 1969). i appreciate the tense feeling conveyed to the reader and the accuracy of making us feel what it's like to have OCD, but those emotions ran too high for too long. the reader was exhausted by the end so that the relief of the ending was just relief that the book was done. perhaps it was the point of the story, to feel as tense as everyone else did during that time, but i didn't feel that a deeper understanding of the whys and hows and resolution and repercussions or anything else could really be dealt with. again, maybe it wasn't the point, but it felt thin on anything else but tension.