To think that I wasn't going to pick up this book. To think I could've missed out on a family saga about grief with some light magic realism. To think I could've missed out on meditations about identity, cultural relationships, immigration, and intergenerational trauma (spoken and unspoken)??

Unthinkable, truly.

Anyway that's essentially my review tbh. I was absolutely enamoured of this book and read it in essentially two sittings. The prose was lyrical, the nonlinear narrative delightful, and the characters were absolutely tragic. It made me feel things and reminded me most of Ruth Ozeki's the Book of Form and Emptiness, which I loved for very similar reasons.

I got an ebook from the library and the true tragedy is that I'll be losing my highlights. This book made me want to look into the goodreads quote feature again, so I could revel in the good passages until I reread a physical copy and enjoy the prose all over again.

Recommended if you're the child of political immigrants (hits home bro, I highlighted many a thing), enjoy the tension between love and sadness (what does that say about me), and don't mind a slow, lyrical, character-focused family tale.

More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/sS8eromz-Ko