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A review by kierscrivener
Disappearing Moon Cafe by Sky Lee
dark
emotional
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
An intergenerational tale of a Chinese Canadian family from 1892 to 1987, five generations of miscommunication, racism, immigration, misogyny and family secrets and tragedy.
It has parallels to One Hundred Years of Solitude a novel that I hated right down to the incest, but the absence of rape and the incest being a result of miscommunication and affairs, the sisters not knowing that the men they met were half brothers and their parents refusing to tell them the truth even after they enter romantic relationships with them made a plot line that normally disgusts me a thematic exploration. I understand why it existed and what she was trying to utilize through including it, and outside of the ickiness of Morgan when he was older I think it was handled with care and not the dangerous tropes that can so often exist whenever incest is present.
Lee as a female author focuses on the matriarchs of the family and the daughters, highlighting the misogyny and critiquing it and the racism and anti-immigration laws in Canada.
Overall, it was a compelling, thought provoking important book that reads like modern books in the vein of Everything I Never Told You, City of Girls, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, or The Vanishing Half despite being published in 1990. I do think that a reread could tighten up the plot for me as it was balancing five generations back and forth, but I found it generally easy to attach and interesting and Sky Lee told a story that were underheard in 1990 and now.
Content Warnings: incest, racism, anti-immigration, abuse of Asian workers, misogyny, affairs, miscarriage, death of children, adult-minor relationship, teen pregnancy, Asian and Indigenous slurs and probably some I am blanking on
It has parallels to One Hundred Years of Solitude a novel that I hated right down to the incest, but the absence of rape and the incest being a result of miscommunication and affairs, the sisters not knowing that the men they met were half brothers and their parents refusing to tell them the truth even after they enter romantic relationships with them made a plot line that normally disgusts me a thematic exploration. I understand why it existed and what she was trying to utilize through including it, and outside of the ickiness of Morgan when he was older I think it was handled with care and not the dangerous tropes that can so often exist whenever incest is present.
Lee as a female author focuses on the matriarchs of the family and the daughters, highlighting the misogyny and critiquing it and the racism and anti-immigration laws in Canada.
Overall, it was a compelling, thought provoking important book that reads like modern books in the vein of Everything I Never Told You, City of Girls, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, or The Vanishing Half despite being published in 1990. I do think that a reread could tighten up the plot for me as it was balancing five generations back and forth, but I found it generally easy to attach and interesting and Sky Lee told a story that were underheard in 1990 and now.
Content Warnings: incest, racism, anti-immigration, abuse of Asian workers, misogyny, affairs, miscarriage, death of children, adult-minor relationship, teen pregnancy, Asian and Indigenous slurs and probably some I am blanking on
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Sexual violence, Racism, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Infertility, and Incest
Moderate: Infidelity
Minor: Murder, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Police brutality