A review by bexellency
Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

1.75

I wouldn’t have read this book, except it was a book club pick, so it’s unsurprisingly it didn’t land well for me.  I don’t enjoy multigenerational family drama and trauma stories.  The recurring themes of ‘I’m an irredeemable bad mother’ and ‘I’m a terrible person and have constant guilt’, often about reasonable viewpoints and actions.  The heavy handed emphasis that this is a story about women.  When we got to the “big reveal”, I didn’t much care as I wasn’t invested in these women.  And I often felt like I didn’t get it - is there a significance to the fear of the water and the learning to swim?  Where did this mansion size house come from (admittedly, that one might have been covered, I started doing the audio equivalent of skimming)? Why is Anne an illustrator?  I did like the Banyan House as almost a living entity in the story.