All the feels. It took me a while to finish because the story is so rich I kept having to pause every few chapters for a breath. Natalia Sylvester has written a novel with so many layers and themes: marriage, family, immigration, heritage, loss; without making the story seem overly dramatic. The dual timeline and structure of the novel made all the parts of the story blend and work together as we follow the story of the Bravo family over a generation.

I have SO MANY FEELINGS about this book. So many. Jacqueline and Kevin and Annette and Paul are such complex characters, yet they aren't really. There's so much here about loss and hurt and family and marriage and relationships and wealth and tradition. It made me happy and upset and angry and squicky and sad and hopeful and satisfied and much more. This is one of those books where you sit down to read the first few pages and look up 84 pages later wondering what happened. Katia Ulysse sets the stage well and guides us through to the end. She breaks your heart and puts it back together again, over and over, in a mere 200 pages.

Reasons why this is great:
1. Meet cute is email banter that starts with her accidentally sending him a slightly inappropriate email meant for a friend and colleague.
2.Heroine is a big girl, but the story isn't centered on her size.
3. Hero treats heroine like a real person and respects her wishes, even though the power dynamic is clearly in his favor
4. This quote: The balance of society is weighted unfairly in favor of men, so anything they might give me in return for the blessing of my time is nothing less than what I deserve.
5. The climax (heh) of the plot isn't brought on by miscommunication between the hero and heroine.
6. Both main characters are people of color and fully realized without being stereotypical/tropes.

An engrossing novel about love, grief, and family told from three perspectives. The writing is lovely, the characters and complex, but softly so, with gentle layers that prevents any one person from being particularly abrasive.

A wonderfully immersive story set in a time and place and culture that I don't get to read about very often. This is an immigrant story set in the late 1980s/early 1990s in a Filipino immigrant community. Elaine Castillo writes about love and identity and family is subtle, but also very thoughtful ways.

"I used to think I was exiled from my country. But, in retracing the steps of my past, I have understood that I was exiled from my childhood. Which seems so much crueler."

Breathtaking in its simplicity and complexity, this is the story of a childhood and how it was lost during a war that the protagonist Gaby didn't really understand. This is a story of how a biracial boy learns that I cannot choose or fully embrace any one of his identities, they are determined for him by the circumstances of the times. He can be all of the things that he is and none of them all at once, different parts are emphasized based on who wields the power. Through his eyes we get to see how a country and a people are torn apart, how neighbors and friends become mortal enemies, and the cruelty of humanity when the right elements combine and fester.

Delightful.