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eggmama 's review for:
Fiona and Jane
by Jean Chen Ho
Closer to a 2.5, knocking it down from a 3 due to that ending scene lol. I have wildly conflicting feelings about this book.
The pros:
- There are some great stories in here. The Night Market and Go Slow are my favorites.
- Ho writes about the complexities of friendship (growing, changing, fighting, grieving, loving) really well. Reading about Fiona, Jane, and Won's adventures was like holding a mirror up to my own silly illegal high school escapades with my two best friends (I was a Jane, obviously), and our resulting experiences of growing apart but still keeping in touch but not quite being as close as we once were. There's love and grief there! There's so much in those dynamics, and the way Ho captured them felt true! I teared up a bit!
The cons:
- Because Ho writes about friendship so well, I wanted more of it!! More friendship and less boyfriends/shitty romances. We only get ONE scene with just Fiona and Jane and no one else.
- The focus on the men made them eclipse Fiona and Jane as characters/we only really see them in relation to men.
- Would love more info on why Jane is told in first person and Fiona is in third person.
- The ending scene is what really gets me though....such a cheap narrative device that undercuts everything Ho set up in the rest of the book. I cannot fathom choosing that ending and thinking it's a strong point to end on. Meh!
The pros:
- There are some great stories in here. The Night Market and Go Slow are my favorites.
- Ho writes about the complexities of friendship (growing, changing, fighting, grieving, loving) really well. Reading about Fiona, Jane, and Won's adventures was like holding a mirror up to my own silly illegal high school escapades with my two best friends (I was a Jane, obviously), and our resulting experiences of growing apart but still keeping in touch but not quite being as close as we once were. There's love and grief there! There's so much in those dynamics, and the way Ho captured them felt true! I teared up a bit!
The cons:
- Because Ho writes about friendship so well, I wanted more of it!! More friendship and less boyfriends/shitty romances. We only get ONE scene with just Fiona and Jane and no one else.
- The focus on the men made them eclipse Fiona and Jane as characters/we only really see them in relation to men.
- Would love more info on why Jane is told in first person and Fiona is in third person.
- The ending scene is what really gets me though....such a cheap narrative device that undercuts everything Ho set up in the rest of the book. I cannot fathom choosing that ending and thinking it's a strong point to end on. Meh!