A lot of the time, single people in their late twenties are portrayed as sad, lonely or desperate in the media. I’m glad The Paris Wedding doesn’t go down that road, even if the main character is pining after “the one who got away”. In fact, she’s invited to his destination wedding in Paris, which gives rise to a lot of awkward situations and some humorous ones.
A SEMI DEFINITIVE LIST OF WORST NIGHTMARES by Krystal Sutherland
A Semi Definitive List of Worst Nightmares was yet another book from Krystal Sutherland that made me cry. Something about the way she writes and crafts her characters make them so relatable. The emotions are so palpable, it’s impossible not to feel something for the characters. I think that’s what made this book particularly great. There was nuance in the way mental health was dealt with several times over.
GRAFFITI MOON by Cath Crowley
My favourite undergrad project was graffiti. I spent an entire semester studying the subculture of graffiti, which was a more than colourful endeavour. What I noticed then was the lack of representation of graffiti in YA literature. Perhaps it’s the deviant nature of it that precludes it from being written about so freely? Or maybe it’s also the difficulty of access, which could be limiting authors’ understanding of graffiti.
SALTWATER MOONS by Julie Gittus
Saltwater Moons is a very contemplative novel, full of heartache from the beginning right through to the end. What I liked about it is how true to life it is. I think that’s difficult to pull off. As much as realistic fiction carries the label realistic, it’s more about being believable because so many things happen in life that are unbelievable, yet in fiction, readers struggle to suspend their disbelief when such events take place in books.
MY SINGAPORE LOVER by Judy Chapman
I visited the library earlier today, fully determined to check out the Singapore collection. Faced with the fiction shelf of Singapore literature, this one bright blue spine popped out, so I took it from the shelf. Turns out it was My Singapore Lover. While I didn’t really know what it was about, I had seen copies of that book on display at bookstores. I thus started to read the book. 20 pages in, I already wanted to chuck it aside. Nothing really grabbed me but I didn’t want to make snap judgements. Plus, My Singapore Lover was published fairly recently, which I figured fits in squarely with Crazy Rich Asians, another book set in Singapore that was published last year. (I have yet to read it.)
