Love it. The character development was beautiful. The writing was great. The dialogue was perfect.

Only one complaint that I thought was more weird than bad…towards the beginning, this isn’t relevant to the plot in the least, so I’m not spoiling a thing, don’t worry. There’s a character with super chapped lips. The author spends a LOT of time and detail on these lips. I expected there to be a purpose to this, but it never came up. Seriously fantastic book, except the weird detour about chapped lips…

3.5 stars

The synopsis pitches this as a murder mystery. To a point, it is, but it is quite clear what happened to Denny and why, so for me his death was only a minor part of the story.

The richer element is the story of family, perseverance and acceptance. For this family of Vietnamese immigrants living in Australia, times are tough. The parents are poorer, don’t speak the language and struggle to integrate. The children are Australian, struggle with Vietnamese and despair about their parents. It’s a common theme in novels. Daughters never live up to their mother’s expectations about marriage, while sons struggle with the pressure to do better.

Lien has shared an insight into how this feels and the struggles on both sides. While there is some shocking racism (and I had to look up a few terms) the family’s choice to live in a Vietnamese community somewhat diminishes it, and we don’t truly appreciate the true impact it would have had on the families.

There are a lot of flashbacks, which are interesting and help us to understand the present day family, but the distinction between past and present is somewhat blurred. Were this a story of family then I would rate it higher as the insight into the culture and traditions is fascinating. Ky’s weak attempts to interview everyone are less gripping, especially as she barely discovers anything. These show us the fear that the gangs instil in everyone, as well as the mistrust of the police, but otherwise add little to the story, because halfway through it becomes more about her friendship with Minnie and how it ended.

While the book is short, the chapters are long which does make it a very slow book. There are also a few expressions that feel more modern than the time this story is set - perhaps Australia was ahead of its time, but a few seem more 21st century then end of 20th.

The final chapter redeems the book; it’s poignant and thought-provoking. It is a shame we don’t learn more about Denny, as despite him being at the book’s centre we really know very little about him. Coupled with the lack of emotion, it’s hard to feel anything about his death.

Trien has talent as a storyteller, but as a whole this book is rather underwhelming.

A gripping, emotionally-relentless story about Ky, a Vietnamese-Australian woman, who comes home to her parents in Cabramatta after her brother Denny is beaten to death in a restaurant celebrating his graduation. Ky, struggling to process her grief and guilt, takes leave from her job as a journalist and plunges into investigating her brother's death, and why no-one at the restaurant witnessed anything.

Ky and her parents' grief is so raw and difficult to read, it is beautifully done. While my brief blurb makes this sound like a murder mystery, it's not particularly. The question of how Denny died is what the story is strung around, but it is not the heart of the book - which instead delves into Ky's family and their community's experiences after their arrival in Australia, and how this affects the trajectory of their lives.

Copy received courtesy of NetGalley.

Set in Australia and trailing the murder of Denny Tran, the novel opens up a new part of history in the anglophone world that I definately did not know about. I give this book a high rating for the exposure it offered to Cabramatta. There were times when the writing felt odd, especially with Lulu Woo's perspective, but overall a really instriguing and realistic mystery.