Book Review: Doubt & Bitter by Bissme

13131 +00002015-05-01T07:00:31+00:00312015b+00:00Fri, 01 May 2015 07:00:31 +0000, 201610531 +00002021-07-08T03:07:05+00:00312021b+00:00Thu, 08 Jul 2021 03:07:05 +0000, 2016 Daphne LeeLeave a comment

First published on 24th April in The Star.

Review by Daphne Lee

Publisher: Merpati Jingga

BETRAYAL and revenge are the main themes explored in two short story collections by long-time journalist Bissme (who goes by one name).

These relentlessly miserable, casually violent tales of mean-spirited, ill-fated characters hell-bent on destruction of one kind or other are obviously meant to shock, but the outrageous details and denouements lose most of their kick from being repeated like clockwork.

Halfway through Doubt (published in 2013), the gristly, gory details, the small-minded petty axe-grinding ceases to make you gasp. You simply end up groaning, ‘No, not again!’Read More »

Book Review: A Call to Travel by Rumaizah Abu Bakar

13030 +00002015-04-01T07:03:30+00:00302015b+00:00Wed, 01 Apr 2015 07:03:30 +0000, 201614531 +00002021-07-08T03:07:45+00:00312021b+00:00Thu, 08 Jul 2021 03:07:45 +0000, 2016 Daphne LeeLeave a comment

First published on 10th March, 2015 in The Star

A CALL TO TRAVEL: MUSLIM ODYSSEYS

Author: Rumaizah Abu Bakar

Publisher : Silverfish Books

THERE was a period in my life when I read little more than travel books. It started with a re-reading of Bruce Chatwin’s What Am I Doing Here and In Patagonia, and continued, for more than a year, with books by Paul Theroux, Eric Newby, VS Naipaul, Redmond O’Hanlon, Pico Iyer, Colin Thubron and Vikram Seth. There was even one in which Edith Wharton travels through France in a motorcar, not to mention several by writers I’ve not heard of since.

Looking back, I realise that this was a time when I was a new, financially-strapped wife and mother. Armchair travel was, I guess, the most convenient and affordable means of escape from the mundanity of motherhood, a dead-end job and housework.

And it wasn’t as simple as the books transporting me via words and descriptions to strange new worlds. The destinations were only part of the attraction. What I really appreciated was the perspective of the authors – the way places and people were filtered through the lenses of their unique personalities and experiences, and how their reactions and views made you re-think your own opinions, question what you always believed, be fiercely scornful, or even feel inspired.

So, for me, what the travel writer brings to the tale is more than half the journey. I like travel writers to have angles and agendas. I like writers who travel to remember and to forget. I like travel writers who travel to make a point (political, spiritual etc.) or to learn (about the world, a culture, a lesson). I like travel writers who travel to find or to lose themselves, and, most importantly, I like travel writers to write what they think and what they feel.

I looked forward to reading A Call To Travel: Muslim Odysseys because the perspective of a Muslim woman was one I had never come across before in a travel book. The fact that Rumaizah Abu Bakar’s travels took her to a number of Muslim cities and towns was a plus.Read More »

Book Review: How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

15530 +00002014-11-08T09:39:55+00:00302014b+00:00Sat, 08 Nov 2014 09:39:55 +0000, 2016 Daphne Lee2 Comments

Here is my review in all its original smutty glory.

Actually, I have a confession to make: I don’t consider the reviews I write reviews at all, not according to the Wikipedia definition anyway: ‘A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is analyzed based on content, style, and merit.’

Once upon a time I wrote those kinds of reviews, now I guess I just talk about what the books mean to me.

How to Build a Girl reminded me of growing up ‘fat’ and doubtful in 1980s Batu Pahat, Johor. Left to my own devices I would not have doubted anything, least of all myself, but encouraged by some friends and some family members, I suffered from periodical bouts of self-hate and self-doubt. Sure, I should not have let what they say get to me, but hey, that was before I knew anything about life, or myself, way before I became the fabulous Me that’s typing this post.

Anyway, I should perhaps write a post about being a ‘fat’, sexually-frustrated teenager for my personal blog. It would be a book-length post though, so perhaps I should think of writing a memoir. That would be one way to get thrown out of the country.

Until then, my review of How to Build a Girl …Read More »

Book Review: The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

15931 +00002014-08-10T06:08:59+00:00312014b+00:00Sun, 10 Aug 2014 06:08:59 +0000, 201611531 +00002021-07-08T03:08:15+00:00312021b+00:00Thu, 08 Jul 2021 03:08:15 +0000, 2016 Daphne LeeLeave a comment

First published in The Star on 3rd August, 2014

THE GHOST BRIDE

Author: Yangsze Choo

Publisher: William Morrow, 368 pages

WHEN I first heard about this book, I was intrigued. I didn’t know the details of the plot, just the book’s title and that it was set in Malacca.

The title misled me because it suggests a marriage, without which there would not be a bride. My imagination misled me further. As I thought there would be an actual marriage, between a living girl and the spirit of a man, I thought that the story would focus on the married life of the couple, describing, in particular, the bride’s experiences in the world of the dead and how she copes not just with being a new bride but also the fact that her husband is dead! I imagined that there would be plenty of scope for conflicts – perhaps a dead “other woman” or a thwarted suitor in the world of the living, or strange and violent encounters with other-worldly beings.Read More »

Book Review: KL Noir Blue

15431 +00002014-08-01T06:48:54+00:00312014b+00:00Fri, 01 Aug 2014 06:48:54 +0000, 201615331 +00002021-07-08T03:08:53+00:00312021b+00:00Thu, 08 Jul 2021 03:08:53 +0000, 2016 Daphne LeeLeave a comment

An edited version of this review first appeared in The Star on 8th July, 2014

KL NOIR BLUE: NO ARRESTS FOR THE WICKED

Editor: Ee Leen Lee

Publisher: FIXI NOVO, 291 words

FIXI NOVO’sKL NOIR series continues with Blue, a collection that focuses on the shady world of crime.

No Arrests for the Wicked is the book’s cheesy subtitle, but this doesn’t mean that bad deeds go unpunished. Indeed, there are no happy endings for anyone, but the price of crime is never anything as conventional as the rope or 60 years with no hope for parole. Retribution is invariably more creative, poetic even, and much more gruesome than one would suffer if left in the hands of the legal system, as grubby as their paws might be. Hey, it’s noir so there can be no mercy, no silver lining.Read More »

Interview: Shi-Li Kow

12031 +00002014-07-31T05:15:20+00:00312014b+00:00Thu, 31 Jul 2014 05:15:20 +0000, 201611731 +00002021-07-08T03:09:17+00:00312021b+00:00Thu, 08 Jul 2021 03:09:17 +0000, 2016 Daphne LeeLeave a comment

This interview was first published on 11th July, 2014 on the now deleted ‘local’ blog.

Shih-Li Kow is a Malaysian writer published by Silverfish Books. In 2009 her short story anthologyRipples and Other Stories was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.

Previously, Kow’s stories had appeared in News from Home, a collection with two other Silverfish writers Rumaizah Abu Bakar and Chua Kok Yee.

This year, Silverfish published Kow’s first novel, The Sum of Our Follies. In the following Q&A, Kow talks to local about growing up in a small town, what needs to happen for Malaysian fiction to be more widely read, getting edited, and whyFollies isn’t ‘really a novel’.Read More »

Book Review: The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

13931 +00002014-07-01T05:24:39+00:00312014b+00:00Tue, 01 Jul 2014 05:24:39 +0000, 2016 Daphne Lee1 Comment

First published on 29th June, 2014 in The Star
Review by DAPHNE LEE

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AJ FIKRY

Author: Gabrielle Zevin

Publisher: Little, Brown, 256 pages

Let me just start by saying that I really like this book. I enjoyed reading it and gobbled it up in one go. It’s a deliciously light and easy read, especially if you love books and bookshops, and if you fantasise about owning a bookshop, or falling in love with the owner of a bookshop. I admit I’m guilty on all counts.

However, A.J. Fikry, the protagonist of this book and the owner of Island Books (“Alice Island’s exclusive provider of fine literary content….”) is most certainly not the man of my dreams, and Island Books, at least when first encountered in Gabrielle Zevin’s novel, is not the sort of bookstore I would choose to spend much time in.Read More »

Book Review: Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

11130 +00002014-06-01T05:48:11+00:00302014b+00:00Sun, 01 Jun 2014 05:48:11 +0000, 2016 Daphne LeeLeave a comment

First published on 25th May, 2014 in The Star.

Review by DAPHNE LEE

BOY, SNOW, BIRD

Author: Helen Oyeyemi

Publisher: Picador

IN Boy, Snow, Bird, Helen Oyeyemi’s fifth novel, nothing is what it seems, hardly anyone is what they appear to be. The whole is misdirection, right from the title, with its three names that reveal and conceal. Boy, Snow, Bird – names that make a show of telling the truth yet hint at mysteries and secrets.

Take Boy – not a boy, but a beautiful girl – an icy beauty, white-blond, black-eyed. With a name like Boy she could only be a character in soap opera or a fairy tale. She is neither. Boy’s life is a nightmare thanks to an abusive and sadistic father who traps rats for a living. The time comes when Boy decides to leave, to avoid death or maiming, and seek her fortune. She ends up in Flax Hill, a small New England town where she meets Arturo Whitmore, a widower with a daughter named Snow.

Lies are at the centre of this story, they are its foundation and its decoration. They drive the plot, and shape the lives of the characters. The story is a broken mirror (mirrors are an important in this book): each piece of glass tells a lie of some sort, and the whole is a distorted image that changes according to your perspective, and depending on the kinds of patterns you see in the cracks. Maybe there are no patterns. Maybe you see rifts, dividing lines that you can fall through, disappear into.

Book Review: Magic Beach by Crockett Johnson

12631 +00002014-05-02T06:36:26+00:00312014b+00:00Fri, 02 May 2014 06:36:26 +0000, 2016 Daphne LeeLeave a comment

First published on 28th April, 2013 in The Star

IF you’re a fan of children’s books, you would think Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson’s marriage made in heaven. Both were writers of literature for young readers, and Johnson was also an illustrator.

In fact, he drew the pictures for Krauss’ best-known work, The Carrot Seed. Krauss also wrote one of my favourite illustrated books of all time, A Hole is to Dig, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. And Johnson was of course the creator of those wonderful books about a little boy Harold and the adventures he has with his purple crayon.

The Harold books are pure genius in their simplicity. They portray the truth, without embellishment: children draw with all their heart and soul and mind. They enter their creations, live them, imagine them into reality. That is what Harold does. His purple crayon is not magic, his imagination is. This is why you can give a child pencil and paper, or an empty cardboard box, and she will play happily for hours … that is if her imagination hasn’t already been deadened by an iPad or excessive TV-viewing.

Book Review: On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee

14231 +00002014-05-01T05:28:42+00:00312014b+00:00Thu, 01 May 2014 05:28:42 +0000, 2016 Daphne LeeLeave a comment

First published on 4th May, 2014 in The Star

Review by DAPHNE LEE

ON SUCH A FULL SEA

Author: Chang-Rae Lee

Publisher: Riverhead Books

IT seems to me that every month or so, someone will recommend I read yet another book set in some grim, future Earth, its workings – political, religious etc – reflecting, like a carnival mirror, a distorted version of life as we know it, invariably prophesising doom-and-gloom for mankind. These are books that raise worthy questions about life, modern man’s preoccupations and priorities, his choices and mistakes, but altogether too doom-filled for my tastes. I tend to give dystopian fiction wide-berth, preferring to get depressed over more mundane scenarios, like infidelity, bullying and death.

Not that there is none of that in these visions of an apocalyptic future. Life goes on, after all. Humans continue to love and hate, create and destroy, protect and betray. People, it seems, never change, no matter how good or bad things get. I am both disheartened and comforted by this.Read More »

daphne lee

writer * editor * coach

Author: Daphne Lee