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A review by inkdrinkerreads7
Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han
3.0
My final book of 2020, picked up off the back of its feature in Time’s 100 books of the year to read list is, I have to say, a little underwhelming. It’s a quiet (verging on boring) study of a family of Chinese immigrants moving to America in the early 2000s and a kaleidoscopic portrayal of their love in all its many forms.
The writing is occasionally evocative, but relies heavily on subtext, with rather strange narrative ellipses skipping past the more interesting moments of conflict in the book. Han chooses to dwell more on the inferiority of his four family members: the workaholic mother Patty, the aloof, drifting father Liang, detached but caring Jack and the wayward Annabelle- as they navigate through their lives as Americans.
There is something quietly menacing about a lot of the events (or lack thereof) in the book and I appreciated Han’s intentions. However, I found myself on auto-pilot reading through the dense descriptions of mundane daily activities and the meditative navel-gazing. It’s not a bad book by any means but its gorgeous cover belies something a little forgettable.
The writing is occasionally evocative, but relies heavily on subtext, with rather strange narrative ellipses skipping past the more interesting moments of conflict in the book. Han chooses to dwell more on the inferiority of his four family members: the workaholic mother Patty, the aloof, drifting father Liang, detached but caring Jack and the wayward Annabelle- as they navigate through their lives as Americans.
There is something quietly menacing about a lot of the events (or lack thereof) in the book and I appreciated Han’s intentions. However, I found myself on auto-pilot reading through the dense descriptions of mundane daily activities and the meditative navel-gazing. It’s not a bad book by any means but its gorgeous cover belies something a little forgettable.