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A review by fleur_de_lisa
Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad
2.0
I really wanted to give this at least 3 stars.. there’s a lot of potential here but I don’t think it was ever fully realized.
This could have easily been split into at least 5 different novels. For having some of the story lines ‘overlap’ (and I use that term generously) there was nothing added to any of the stories by name dropping another character who was previously mentioned. There were many times I wasn’t sure who or where or when the story was focused on and the constant jumping around from person to person and past, present, future.. was very confusing to say the least. It took me a while even to realize that maybe some of the characters were appearing again somehow, and this wasn’t just a series of individual short stories. I found myself flipping back to previous chapters to see if I was right that certain characters’ names had shown up before.
As a slice-of-life kind of snapshot it does well, but that’s about it. I thought even at one point it was going to diverge into a more politically and socially conscious narrative, with all of the stories about the school riots and economic upheaval etc. - and then it just switched to something else completely. And somehow ends up being in a sci-fi futuristic setting for some of the characters? Those parts really threw me off and did not seem connected at all to any of the rest of the story.
By the time I got to about 60 pages left to read, I skimmed through quickly just to be done with it, and honestly also out of curiosity to see if it would ultimately make any more sense to me in the end than it had all along. While there were some stories and snapshots I enjoyed, overall I don’t think there was enough tying these stories together, or even any overarching themes (other than the fact that water plays a big role in most of the stories). It’s possible I might understand more with a second read-through, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.
This could have easily been split into at least 5 different novels. For having some of the story lines ‘overlap’ (and I use that term generously) there was nothing added to any of the stories by name dropping another character who was previously mentioned. There were many times I wasn’t sure who or where or when the story was focused on and the constant jumping around from person to person and past, present, future.. was very confusing to say the least. It took me a while even to realize that maybe some of the characters were appearing again somehow, and this wasn’t just a series of individual short stories. I found myself flipping back to previous chapters to see if I was right that certain characters’ names had shown up before.
As a slice-of-life kind of snapshot it does well, but that’s about it. I thought even at one point it was going to diverge into a more politically and socially conscious narrative, with all of the stories about the school riots and economic upheaval etc. - and then it just switched to something else completely. And somehow ends up being in a sci-fi futuristic setting for some of the characters? Those parts really threw me off and did not seem connected at all to any of the rest of the story.
By the time I got to about 60 pages left to read, I skimmed through quickly just to be done with it, and honestly also out of curiosity to see if it would ultimately make any more sense to me in the end than it had all along. While there were some stories and snapshots I enjoyed, overall I don’t think there was enough tying these stories together, or even any overarching themes (other than the fact that water plays a big role in most of the stories). It’s possible I might understand more with a second read-through, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.