A review by rachelselene
Music of the Ghosts by Vaddey Ratner

2.0

i struggled with this book. ratner's skill in creating a visual landscape is wonderful. her prose is thick with lush detail and vivid imagery, and i could easily picture the cambodia of teera and the old musician. that said, this book seriously lacked emotional depth for me. obviously the cambodian genocide and the country's subsequent recovery are extremely heavy and emotional topics, but i never quite felt the impact here. ratner tries to connect events of the genocide with her main characters, but she rattles off facts and statistics so frequently that this book often reads more like a history textbook or philosophical study than a novel. i definitely came away with a deep sense of sorrow and a better idea of just how devastating this period was, but i never really cared about teera or the old musician. i never connected with them in the way that i expect to connect with a book's protagonists and main characters. despite the author's close personal ties to the subject matter, there is a curious emotional detachment here that made music of the ghosts a slow and difficult read.