****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Wow, where to start with a book like this? First, let me say that readers of this review should probably know I've spent the past eight years married to a Malaysian Chinese man, have visited Malaysia twice, had a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony (tea ceremony, banquet, etc), speak Mandarin, and worked full time teaching ESL to Chinese immigrants for three years. I'm also a published writer. So a novel about Malaya (old Malaysia) written by a Malaysian Chinese woman and loosely based on her own family history was a no-brainer for me. Understandably, I loved this book. I read the Kindle version, which was formatted well. As a huge audio book fan, I also tried the audio version, but honestly it was one of the worst recordings I've heard. Malaysian English pronounced in a pure British English accent just doesn't work. Aside from pronunciation and accent issues, the narrator over acted and over dramatized the dialogue, making it impossible for me to focus on the text. So definitely go with a written version of this book, *not* the audio version.Moving on, the story itself was great. I found it to be both entertaining and historically/culturally accurate. The author's writing style was solid. This woman clearly has talent. The characters were realistic, and I found myself alternately loving and disliking almost every single one at various points in the book. There were also several heart wrenching moments, tempered with anger over how things could (and should) have been done differently by a certain character. The ending felt a bit awkward or rushed, and the book itself is rather long, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. That said, there is one downside to this book, and that comes in the way the author uses foreign words and Manglish (Malaysian English) throughout the story. Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of the novel is written as first person narrative in perfect English, but any actual dialogue utilizes Manglish. There are also many foreign terms and phrases used throughout the book - so many, in fact, that the author includes a glossary at the end of the book for readers to look up unfamiliar terms.I can understand the decision to use Manglish to give the novel a more authentic local flavor, but the author used a very strong version of Manglish some readers may find difficult to understand. I'm married to a Malaysian and sometimes even I had to reread things several times in order to get the meaning. The author could have used a more toned down version of Malaysian English and had the same effect with less confusion, and I personally feel that would have been a better choice. As for foreign words - yes, Malaysians use words from a mixture of languages in their daily lives (it's not uncommon to hear two, three, or even more languages represented in a single sentence!). But this is an English novel, and many times I felt that English words would have worked better in the narrative parts of the novel than the foreign words that were chosen.Also, there were multiple occasions where words or even entire sentences appeared in a foreign language without any translation whatsoever, not even in the glossary. During those times, I found myself asking my husband for help. He thankfully knows all of the languages and dialects used in this novel, which include Malay, Cantonese, Hakka, and Hokkien (aside from English, of course). Most readers won't have a resource like my husband available, and will be forced to guess the meaning of those phrases. Personally, while knowing Mandarin Chinese helped in some cases with the Chinese parts, the fact that the author didn't use anything remotely close to pinyin in writing out the Chinese phrases sometimes threw me off. For example, it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize "Tsin-sang" is the Cantonese/Hakka version of the Mandarin title "Xian Sheng," or English "Mister." I kept racking my brain trying to remember a character named Tsin-sang, until the similarity to Xian Sheng dawned on me (the term Tsin-sang is never explained in the novel, so readers unfamiliar with Chinese are left to figure out the meaning of those words themselves or look it up in the glossary once they figure out it's not a character's name). All that aside, this is still a terrific novel. Anyone even remotely interested in history, or connected to Malaysia, or into Asian culture will enjoy this book, as will anyone who enjoys family histories or coming of age type novels. The issues mentioned above really are rather minor within the larger context of the story itself. On a more personal note, I would like to thank the author for telling a story that provided a space for my husband and I to talk about his country and culture in more depth than ever before. Things came up that wouldn't have without this book, and I eagerly soaked in every bit of information that came from him during our discussions of the story. This novel also brought up memories for me - of my trip to Malacca, for example (I wish I'd had the opportunity to read this book before going, as it would have increased my appreciation tenfold), and of the wonderful diversity of food available only in Malaysia (PS: my husband grew up in Petaling Jaya and visited your aunt's Nyonya restaurant several times - he says the food is delicious!). This novel took us on a very personal and enjoyable journey at an important time in our lives, and I can't thank you enough for that.In conclusion, to those considering reading this book, I say go for it! While the book itself is marketed as fiction, it reads like an immersive autobiography. You will come away feeling like you've visited Malaya and lived and loved and grown as a person via the eyes of its main character, the memorable Chye Hoon. You can't ask for much more than that.
