A review by madsreb
Revenge, Murder in Three Parts by S.L. Lim

5.0

I loved this—sharp, devastating and full of a wry wisdom that gets at the truth of gender-based educational and financial inequality. It highlights the gap that affords the privileged the option to follow their dreams, and keeps those less so in an endless cycle of survival. Parts of this shocked me with their clarity, like the passage where Yannie is trying to explain to her niece Kat exactly what it feels like to worry about money: ‘How to convey in the abstract what it means to live with deprivation? Easier to explain colours to a blind person... “The thing you have to try and understand is, it isn’t dramatic. It’s not this big tragedy that hits you all at once, and then it’s all over… There are lots of smaller aspects, every single day. They sort of crowd in on you, and don’t leave room for anything else.” A conveyor belt of constant minor indignities… Your mind yearns towards the beautiful, the complex and intangible, but is drawn ceaselessly down towards the pedestrian and mundane.’