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ambershelf 's review for:
The Storm We Made
by Vanessa Chan
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy.
In 1945, in Malaya, Cecily Alcantara finds her family in grave danger during the Japanese occupation. Her 15-year-old son is missing, and her youngest daughter hides in the basement all day to prevent being forced to work in comfort stations. Cecily knows that this is all her doing from a decade prior and that her family must never find out.
I am of two minds of STORM. On the one hand, I love the propulsive writing so much that I finished this book in two sittings. Chan perfectly sets the stage for an entertaining domestic thriller during British colonization and the Japanese occupation of Malay.
I appreciate that a historical fiction set in Asia with mostly Asian characters can break into the suspense/thriller genre—if I read STORM more as a domestic suspense novel—that's traditionally been relatively homogeneous. Cecily's narrative peers into the lives of an unfulfilled housewife as she fights against misogyny and white colonialism, providing fascinating insights into the lives of Malay women.
Nonetheless—and I admit this comes from a reader who reads many Asian WW2 stories—I crave deeper character development and exploration. I wanted to know how Cecily's embrace of "an Asia for Asians" and the disintegration of this dream affected her psyche. Other than her desire to be seen, which manifests as lust, what drives Cecily's decisions? Similarly, I longed for a deeper examination of the irony behind "swapping one colonizer for another" that befell so many hopeful Asians during WW2.
I also find the alternating POVs between four characters distracting and dilute the emotional tension I hoped for. Instead, Chan often relies on dramatic events as a plot device rather than digging deeper into each character's inner world. As a Taiwanese reader who's more well-versed in the profoundly traumatic events that occurred during Japanese annexation, I have complicated feelings about turning the historical events of comfort women and the mass murder of young men into a soap opera-y story. But that perhaps says more about my unprocessed anger than STORM's message.
Ultimately, I still enjoyed reading STORM and would read Chan's future work. For readers who don't read Asian WW2 stories as much, STORM is an entertaining introduction to the complex history of Malay.
In 1945, in Malaya, Cecily Alcantara finds her family in grave danger during the Japanese occupation. Her 15-year-old son is missing, and her youngest daughter hides in the basement all day to prevent being forced to work in comfort stations. Cecily knows that this is all her doing from a decade prior and that her family must never find out.
I am of two minds of STORM. On the one hand, I love the propulsive writing so much that I finished this book in two sittings. Chan perfectly sets the stage for an entertaining domestic thriller during British colonization and the Japanese occupation of Malay.
I appreciate that a historical fiction set in Asia with mostly Asian characters can break into the suspense/thriller genre—if I read STORM more as a domestic suspense novel—that's traditionally been relatively homogeneous. Cecily's narrative peers into the lives of an unfulfilled housewife as she fights against misogyny and white colonialism, providing fascinating insights into the lives of Malay women.
Nonetheless—and I admit this comes from a reader who reads many Asian WW2 stories—I crave deeper character development and exploration. I wanted to know how Cecily's embrace of "an Asia for Asians" and the disintegration of this dream affected her psyche. Other than her desire to be seen, which manifests as lust, what drives Cecily's decisions? Similarly, I longed for a deeper examination of the irony behind "swapping one colonizer for another" that befell so many hopeful Asians during WW2.
I also find the alternating POVs between four characters distracting and dilute the emotional tension I hoped for. Instead, Chan often relies on dramatic events as a plot device rather than digging deeper into each character's inner world. As a Taiwanese reader who's more well-versed in the profoundly traumatic events that occurred during Japanese annexation, I have complicated feelings about turning the historical events of comfort women and the mass murder of young men into a soap opera-y story. But that perhaps says more about my unprocessed anger than STORM's message.
Ultimately, I still enjoyed reading STORM and would read Chan's future work. For readers who don't read Asian WW2 stories as much, STORM is an entertaining introduction to the complex history of Malay.