A review by sharkybookshelf
Elevator in Sài Gòn by Thuận

Did not finish book. Stopped at 56%.

A Vietnamese woman living in Paris returns to Sài Gòn for her mother’s funeral and finds herself delving into mysteries of her mother’s past…

Thankfully this wasn’t as dense and arduous as the previous novel I’ve read by Thuận (Chinatown), but instead it was…dull. Which isn’t exactly an improvement, and I ended up DNFing just over half way. I really should have DNFed it sooner but kept hoping it would pick up (it didn’t).

Whilst I did enjoy the glimpses of the details of life both past and present, found I simply wasn’t interested in the story itself. I wasn’t invested in the central mystery, the humour didn’t really land for me (humour in books is so personal) and I never once found myself itching to get back to the story. In fact, I read two whole other books whilst procrastinating from picking this one back up again.