Book Review: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernardine Evaristo (Published by Hamish Hamilton in 2019)

My Rating: ★★★★☆

I must be the last person to read this since it (joint-)won the Booker Prize, but now that I have, I finally get what the fuss is all about. I haven’t read Atwood’s The Testaments (just The Handmaid’s Tale), but I’ll go out on a limb here and say that it can’t possibly be as good as Girl, Woman, Other. This is just so so SO good. I’d say that it’s probably the strongest contender for the Women’s Prize this year.

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Book Review: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

QUEENIE by Candice Carty-Williams (Published by Orion in 2019)

My Rating: ★★★☆☆

Reading Queenie is like watching a car crash happen in slow motion: I was afraid of the inevitable collision, but I was also bored at its progression, and bored is the last thing I want to feel about a novel like this. 

Book Review: The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee

The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (2.5 stars)

This review contains minor spoilers

I have always been drawn to fiction about the inner lives of women, so this novel drew me in from the synopsis. The Expatriates is about three women who have uprooted their lives in America in order to live in Hong Kong, although they have different reasons for doing so. Mercy is a young Korean American graduate from Columbia, disillusioned because she is unable to hold down a regular job despite her prestigious degree. Margaret and her husband have moved to Hong Kong because of his company, and all is well until one of her children go missing during a vacation to Korea. Hilary similarly follows her husband to Hong Kong, but their marriage isn’t going well, either—she’s wearily resigned to her childlessness, and she has lost the will to take action in her life, something that characterised her before she came to Hong Kong.