Review: She Was the Quiet One (by Michele Campbell)

My Rating: 4 stars

As is the case with most thriller/suspense novels that I read, my review will be relatively short, since I believe it's always best to go into these types of books knowing as little as possible. I will admit that I was a little put off at first from reading this book, as I read in the summary that the story revolves around a murder mystery at a boarding school and quite honestly, this past year, I had already read more than 1 book with this same setup.  However, I decided to give it a go and am glad I did, as this one turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  Most books with this type of theme usually have a narrative that focuses primarily on the students at the school and the various trouble they get into, with the teachers and/or faculty usually only briefly mentioned as side characters -- this one was different in that two of the central characters the narrative revolved around were actually teachers at the school and their roles in advancing the plot were equally as important as the students.   With that said though, I didn't particularly like any of the characters and actually found myself getting increasingly frustrated with some of them as the story moved along, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying the overall story, which was quite compellingly written.  The narrative format, alternating between the viewpoints of various characters interspersed with witness testimony from the police interrogation, actually worked really well in this instance – I liked that the testimony was worked cleverly into the plot in a way that helped build up suspense but without giving anything away.

Overall, I enjoyed this one, as the story was engaging and kept me turning the pages, despite the fact that I had already figured out most of the "mystery" early on.  Perhaps I am getting better at figuring these things out now, but I felt that, while it definitely had its suspenseful moments, this was not the type of story that was filled with so many twists and turns that it ended up feeling like a roller coaster ride.  The only real twist was in the Epilogue, which I thought was cleverly done in that it was unexpected, though not necessarily shocking.  My only real complaint is the ending, which felt a bit rushed to me and was also a little too predictable, to the point of feeling anti-climactic, but luckily it didn't detract too much from the rest of the story, at least not for me.

She Was the Quiet One is the second suspense / thriller attempt by new author Michele Campbell.  I haven't yet read her first book It's Always the Husband, which came out last year, but I have that one on my TBR and do intend to read it one of these days.  While I can't comment on how Campbell's sophomore effort measures up to her first, I will say that this one was encouraging enough to get me interested in reading more from this author.

Received ARC from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley

Review: The Family Tabor (by Cherise Wolas)

My Rating: 4 stars

Having read (and loved) Cherise Wolas’ masterful debut novel The Resurrection of Joan Ashby last summer, I went into this book, her sophomore effort The Family Tabor, knowing that I would be treated to yet another beautifully written story with well-developed, realistic characters.   Wolas’ writing is exquisite – she is one of those rare talents who is able to take seemingly ordinary, everyday events and turn them into gorgeously rendered scenes, with descriptions that are intricate and richly detailed, yet deftly woven into the story in a way that never feels overwritten (to me at least).  As she did with her characters in her previous novel, Wolas goes deep into the minds of each member of the Tabor family and slowly, gently, brings forth the issues that each character faces, the inner conflicts that they struggle with and how those feelings, those emotions that feel so real, impact the rest of the family.  This is a character-driven story through and through and once again, just like with Joan Ashby, we get to know each of Wolas’ characters intimately, understand what makes each of them tick, the motivations behind their decisions, and the extent to which their backstories as well as actions taken in the past affect their lives in the present.

This is one of those books that requires a certain amount of patience to read, not because the concepts are particularly complicated or hard to understand, but rather the story is very introspective, and in a sense, almost requires the reader to approach with a contemplative mindset.  To me, there was also a philosophical element to the story and despite the descriptive details, I felt that there was also profound meaning in some of what was left unsaid throughout the story, leaving room for us to reflect and apply our own thoughts rather than dictate a particular direction to follow.  The story this time around also focuses on family dynamics and the delicate balance between the necessity of maintaining the bonds of family while still following one’s individual path and beliefs, however with this story, there was also the added element of faith and religion, which ended up being a bit more central to the story than the author originally intended (here’s a link to Wolas’ interview with Publisher’s Weekly where she talks a little bit about the religious element in her book: PW interview).   As a reader who is always seeking to learn about cultures different from my own, I appreciate the knowledge that I was able to gain about the Jewish faith, most of which was previously unknown to me.

With The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, Cherise Wolas set a tremendously high bar for herself and while I feel that this book lives up to those standards and is as excellently written as her debut, it didn’t have as profound of an impact on me as her previous novel did.  I had connected deeply with Joan Ashby, perhaps because of her being a writer and a storyteller, which are both things that are huge in my life as well.  In comparisons, I didn’t connect with the Tabor family as deeply, despite knowing them so intimately through the author’s amazingly intricate characterizations.  Even with that said, this was still a wonderful book, one that I enjoyed and savored, though didn’t “love” as much as the first one.  With yet another impressive work that I had the privilege of reading, Wolas is now on my list of favorite new “must-read” authors.  I can’t wait to see what she will come out with next!

Received ARC from Flatiron Books via NetGalley.

Review: Bruce Lee: A Life (by Matthew Polly)

My Rating: 5 stars 

As I've mentioned in other reviews, I was born in HK and even though I've lived in the U.S. for most of my life, that has not stopped me from having a strong connection to the place of my birth.  My fondness for HK runs deep and even though it is a very different place now from what it was when I first grew to know the city back in the 1980s, my affinity for it has not waned.  Because of this background, I've always been sensitive about how HK is portrayed, especially by the Western world and those who may or may not be familiar with the city's language, culture, history, etc.  Don't get me wrong – I'm not saying that HK always has to be portrayed in a good light because we all know that bad things do happen there as they do everywhere in the world and bringing that stuff to light is absolutely necessary…rather, my concern has always been that the portrayal is accurate and fair, which, for those who do not already have familiarity with HK and/or Chinese culture, may mean doing the research necessary to ensure integrity of the portrayal is preserved.  For me, authenticity is important when it comes to non-fiction portrayals of real-life events and absolutely, when it comes to biographies of real-life people, especially those who are no longer around to either validate or refute what is being written about their lives.  

I must admit when I first found out that American martial arts and travel writer Matthew Polly was releasing an authoritative biography on Hong Kong martial arts legend Bruce Lee, the question of authenticity did come into my mind initially.  Knowing virtually nothing about Polly prior to starting this book, I wondered how this biography would play out.  Would this book be in the same vein as some of the other English language books out there that have attempted to cover certain aspects of Bruce's life but never really managed to be comprehensive?  Or would this one focus heavily on the martial arts aspect, on Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do and Chinese kung fu, with the actual details of Bruce's life merely a side story?  At minimum, I thought for sure this biography would focus more heavily on the Western portrayal of Bruce's life, his studies in the United States, his stint in Hollywood, his many celebrity friends as well as students, his relationship with his wife Linda, etc.  – basically a lot of what had already been said in the innumerable library of source material on Bruce Lee (whether books, magazines, newspapers, movies, TV shows, etc.).

Given the above, it should come as no surprise then, that I had mixed feelings at first going into this read.  On the one hand, I was excited, since, after all, this is a biography about one of Hong Kong's penultimate cultural icons.  My connection with the city aside, it is not lost on me that there has always been (and continues to be) very little Asian (more specifically Chinese) representation in the American literary world and representation from Hong Kong is minimal at best -- so when I saw that someone actually took the time to write an extensive biography about one of my birth city's greatest self-made superstars, I jumped at the opportunity to read this massive book (and yes, at 656 pages, this book is indeed MASSIVE), despite the fact that, like most Hong Kongers, I already knew pretty much everything there was to know about Bruce Lee's short but vibrant life.  On the other hand, I was skeptical, as Bruce Lee was one of those rare celebrities who became a bona fide international icon almost entirely posthumously and I frankly did not know what to expect.

Now after finishing this book (and yes I'm proud to say I read every single page, cover to cover, including the 200+ pages of notes and references as well as extensive bibliography), I have to say that my initial reservations were unwarranted, as this biography exceeded my expectations and then some!  I am pleasantly surprised, delighted, and absolutely in awe at the amount of research that went into this book! What made this particular biography about Bruce Lee stand out from all the previous works that had been written about him was the tremendous depth of coverage – not just the fact that the narrative covered nearly every aspect of Bruce's life from birth to death in great detail, but also the extensive detail about Hong Kong itself – the historical background, insight into the culture, coverage of the HK entertainment industry and who all the major players were back then, the background on Bruce's family, the various personal as well as celebrity friends and acquaintances he had over there, etc. (I was surprised to see so many familiar names and places in the book – stuff I rarely ever see in books about HK written in English).  As the author Matthew Polly states in his Afterword, over the past four and a half decades, it seems like every single person who ever knew Bruce Lee at some point has written a book about him — while this is true, my opinion is that many of these works have in common is that most were written from the perspective of the writer's own memories and what they remembered about their interactions with him, but very few (if any) featured the extensive amount of research and fact-checking that went into this biography.  In his author's note, Polly talks about his methodology and the prep work that went into writing this book: "I watched everything Bruce had ever done and took copious notes.  I read everything that had ever been written about Bruce and took copious notes.  And then I interviewed everyone who had ever known Bruce and was willing to talk and took copious notes.  Then I compiled these notes into a single Word document in chronological order.  The final file was over 2,500 pages and a million words long."  And also this:  "The process took over six years.  I spent six months in Hong Kong and another two in Los Angeles and Seattle.  Along the way, I interviewed over a hundred people and met with many others who were helpful in countless ways."

For me, what mattered the most with this book wasn't necessarily the content itself, but rather, the effort that was put in and the exhaustive lengths the author went through to ensure that his final product does justice to its subject.  Of all the books I've read in my lifetime (so far), this was the first time where, upon finishing the ARC version of this book, I immediately went and purchased the final published version because I knew that I absolutely had to "collect" this book for my personal library.  If I didn't already have a long list of books that I still needed to get to, there's no doubt that I would've launched into an immediate re-reading of this book, though this time with the notes side-by-side for comparison.  What I loved most about this book is that -- unlike many of the other books / magazines / articles out that have been written over the years that portray a largely romanticized, idealized, and at times even bordering on caricature version of Bruce Lee, this author chose to go the opposite direction and present Bruce as he was in real life:  as an ordinary guy with an extraordinary personality and a charming, larger-than-life persona, but also more character flaws than can be counted on two hands.  In striving to present the human side of Bruce, Polly laid out everything as is, both the good and the bad, but more importantly, he explained with the most thoroughness that I've seen thus far, the significance of Bruce Lee's legacy and why it still matters today.  This is one of those books that deserves not just to be read -- complete from the Prologue to the Epilogue and everything in between, including the Afterword, the notes, and the bibliography --  but also explored, savored, and cherished (for me personally, the Epilogue and Afterword were my favorite parts of the book).

I've always found it difficult to summarize someone's entire life in a few short paragraphs so I'm not going to even try it with this review.  Instead, I encourage those reading this review to experience the book for yourself, whether you are a fan of Bruce Lee and/or martial arts or not.  The historical and cultural aspects of Hong Kong are well-depicted in here and for that alone, especially for those who may not be familiar with Hong Kong, this is an insightful read.  For those curious about Hollywood in the 1960s and 70s, the film-making process, what it was like for celebrities during that time, the lifestyle, the environment, this book gives an interesting glimpse into that era.  If you are into martial arts and wanted to explore that angle of Bruce's life, this book does a great job breaking down the basics as it relates to Bruce's philosophy and how Jeet Kune Do came to be (and it's done in a way that folks with little to no knowledge / interest in martial arts like me can easily understand).  And finally, if you are a Bruce Lee fan, you should definitely read this book, as it is a sincere and fascinating exploration of the short  yet dynamic life of one of the most recognizable names on the planet.

This year marks the 45^th anniversary of Bruce Lee's death.  Even though this book was published last month (in June) and I've had the ARC sitting in my queue for a few months already, I actually didn't crack this book open until this week – in fact, I started reading this on July 20^th (I'm sure it is not lost on Bruce Lee fans the significance of this date) and despite its length (600+ pages!), I plowed through it in 4 days (definitely a record for me).  Beyond Bruce Lee's legacy and what he is known for in the international arena – his martial arts, his film career, his mysterious and sudden death, his scandals and high-profile relationships, his vitality and his larger-than-life persona – the biggest significance for me as a Chinese-American who, like Bruce, had one foot firmly planted in the East and the other equally in the West,  is the fact that he broke through cultural barriers, transformed long-held, misguided perceptions about Asians in the Western world, and through his example, empowered us to believe in ourselves, in our self-worth, and the possibility to achieve what was previously unachievable; he opened the doors for us and gave us a voice.  The part that resonates with me the most and, for me, will always be the true legacy that Bruce Lee left us is summed up in this passage from the Epilogue where Polly writes:  "But perhaps most important in this age of polarization and ethnic strife is the example he [Bruce] set and espoused.  As a Eurasian, he faced discrimination from both sides of the East/West divide.  He never let it stop him.  Instead, he preached a message of post-racial unity. [When asked whether he felt he was more Chinese or more American, Bruce would often answer] 'I think of myself as a human being, because under the sky, there is but one family.  It just so happens that people are different.'  And he practiced it.  He accepted anyone who wanted to learn from him.  His first student in America was Jesse Glover [a black man whom everyone he approached refused to teach purely because of the color of his skin].  'If he felt you were sincere, Bruce taught you, ' [his student] Taky Kimura recalls.  'He didn't care what race you were.'"  In the decades since Bruce Lee's death, our world has greatly evolved and many things have changed, both for better and for worse – in the area of race relations, while there has been significant progress, we are still far from the ideal of "post-racial unity" that Bruce preached.  I cannot say for sure whether we will ever get there, but one thing's for sure -- the road, while definitely still bumpy and difficult, is a lot smoother now for Asian-Americans than it was back during that time and without a doubt,  Bruce Lee was instrumental in making that happen.  For that, I am grateful!

Received ARC from Simon & Schuster via NetGalley.

Review: A Place for Us (by Fatima Farheen Mirza)

My Rating:  5 stars

 

How could I not give 5 stars to a book that touched me so deeply and resonated with me in such a way that closing the cover after reaching the end of this poignant story made me feel like I was leaving a part of myself behind?   This is the third book I’ve read so far this year that broke my heart and moved me to the point of tears, but the first one where I experienced such a deep connection emotionally that, upon finishing the book, I felt utterly depleted, as though the wind had been knocked out of me.  Even now, as I attempt to put into words how I feel about this astoundingly beautiful debut novel, I am struggling because nothing I write will do justice to how good this book was and the profound impact it had on me.  It is not often that I am rendered essentially speechless after reading a book and have to fight hard to gather my thoughts as well as express them in a somewhat coherent manner – yes, THIS book had THAT type of effect on me.

Even though I do not share the same culture or religion as the family at the center of this story, I am blown away by how strongly I was still able to relate to each of the characters as well as how similar our experiences were on so many levels.  Indeed, this was one of the most unique aspects of this book and absolutely a reflection of the author Fatima Farheen Mirza’s immense literary talent – I was floored by the author’s ability to explore with such depth the complexities of family dynamics against the backdrop of one particular culture and religion, yet still make the story so universally resonant with those of us who may not share the same beliefs.  Mirza’s writing is exquisite, beautiful, emotionally nuanced to the point that it draws you in from the very first page, grabs a hold of your heart, and never lets go.  This is the kind of writing that is quiet and subtle, yet rich in its coverage of the topics that matter – family dynamics, culture and tradition, community, religion, identity and belonging.  Each character was so tenderly and gently drawn at the hands of this talented writer, yet the portrayal was so realistic and authentic that there were many moments where I felt I was reading about a real Indian-American Muslim family learning to exist in a world where the culture was so different from their own.

This was a family I grew to love – the parents Rafiq and Layla, their two daughters Hadia and Huda, and the youngest, their only son Amar whose path, even as early as birth, was already rocky and perhaps destined to “not fit in” with the norm.   I love how the story alternated between each character’s point of view -- the same events, life moments at times told from a different character’s perspective, the differences in interpretation of each other’s words, actions, facial expressions, body language, and how all these nuances in each character’s interactions with one another trigger a myriad of reactions and decisions that eventually altered the course of their lives, for better or for worse.  As the story progressed and I got to delve deep into the thoughts and feelings of each character, I began to see a little bit of myself in each of the siblings and it was at that point that I knew this book would affect me on personal level.  I resonated with eldest sister Hadia – the part of her that was studious, responsible, obedient, the rock in the family who can always be counted on to do the right thing, to follow the right path, to sacrifice her wants and desires in order to fulfill the obligations expected of her – I completely understood the inner conflict she had to go through in trying to reconcile her genuine love and affection for her family with the feelings of resentment and constant yearning for recognition and praise from her parents that, at times, got the better of her and influenced her decisions.  I connected with middle sister Huda – the sibling who was most self-assured and comfortable in her own shoes, who was the voice of reason, who wore her heart on her sleeve and was never afraid to tell things like it is, to be up front and direct, to admonish her siblings when they screw up, yet in times of need, stand loyally by their side and be that shoulder to cry on or that source of comfort during moments of despair.  And yes, I absolutely resonated with Amar – the wayward son, the baby of the family, the sensitive soul who always felt everything so deeply, who was kind-hearted but rebellious, the apple of his mother’s eye and the sibling who received the most outward love and attention, well-liked by everyone in the community, yet he was the one who struggled the most with his “place” in the world and felt that he never truly “belonged,” a young man constantly striving for acceptance, self-worth, identity.

The last part of the story, told entirely from the father Rafiq’s point of view, very nearly broke me – from the first page of that section, the tears flowed non-stop and by the end, I was outright crying.  Hearing the narrative and many of the same defining moments from the earlier sections, this time told from the father’s first person perspective -- the one character who had remained silent for the most part throughout majority of the story finally giving his account – it was stirring and powerful, heartfelt and inspiring, yet at the same time tremendously heart-breaking.  It made me think about my own relationship with my parents, the many arguments we’ve had over the years, and reminded me how fragile family relationships can be, how a family can love each other deeply yet make decisions in each other’s best interests that end up hurting each other the most.  This last section brought the story full circle and was particularly thought-provoking, albeit emotionally draining.

Many reviews out there have sung the praises of this book and rightfully so!  There isn’t much I can add that hasn’t already been eloquently stated by others so I won’t attempt to put all my thoughts here but just know that even now, a day after finishing this book, I am still thinking about it, revisiting certain scenes and allowing Mirza’s beautifully written words to once again flow through my mind.  This one is highly recommended, without a doubt! 

Received ARC from SJP for Hogarth via Penguin First to Read program.