Review: The Weight of Our Sky
It's been quite a good while since there has been such low time gap between two blogs. Because to be frank, I do not have as much time as I used to back when I started this blog. I do miss those times though, when I would finish two to three books in a day and post a review daily. And that is the reason we've reached almost 90 blogs in the past 6 months. [Has it been 6 months already though?]
Melati Ahmed has a normal lifestyle, she lives with her mother, she watches movies with her best friend and she enjoys Beatles. At least, as normal as she can appear on the surface. Mel believes that she has a djinn residing inside of her, who threatens her with horrific images of her mother's death, until she adheres to a rythmic system of tapping and counting. And then comes the fateful day of 13th May, 1969, racial tensions in the city of Kuala Lumpur boil all over. The Chinese and the Malay are at war and Mel gets separated from her mother in these desperate times. With no means of communication, curfew and the whole city boiling in flames, Melati has no idea what to do.
QUICK THOUGHTS AND REVIEW: 4.8/5, VERY MOVING, KIND OF THINKING WHY I HADN'T READ THIS BOOK EARLIER.
WHAT DID I FEEL ABOUT THE BOOK'S:
1. Writing Quality: The first line is enough to draw you in.
By the time school ends on Tuesday, my mother has died seventeen times.
It reels you in like a frickin magnet and you're interested at once because you want to know what is going on. There is an air of tension even in the beginning of the book and you do know stuff's about to go down but you can't stop reading because you want to know what's gonna go down. Because I think that's what the book is about, and I frickin love it. Also this quote, literal chills.
When there is so much broken about the world we currently live in, one cracked person is easy enough to excuse or ignore.
2. Character Development: I don't know what to say, like I really don't. This book nearly brings me to tears when I think about the character development because it is so relatable. Times of distress and then dealing with your own demons while finding the only person you know who could be alive. And Bee's family helping Mel despite the situations is so moving. Goodness gracious, it makes me emotional because it's so beautiful. Man I wish I could actually speak more about this.
3. Couldn't put it down- Ness: 10/10. It really was un-put-down-able. If my father hadn't threatened to throw my laptop away if I didn't go to sleep then it would probably have been finished by like 2 am? Yeah, two am. I'd have finished this in one sitting. Because it took me like 1 hour and a half to finish it in the morning. And morning reads are always slow, considering my brain needs coffee and breakfast.
4. Intellectual Depth: I didn't actually read through the synopsis properly so I kind did not know that this was based on the May 13 incident. Like I had my doubts that maybe it was, but I couldn't confirm it properly. I fear that I may not do justice to this book while writing this portion because the intellectual depth is way more than one can expect at first glance. May 13 incident [I will provide link to an article below if you don't know about it] can be quite the controversial topic and on top of that it's a very sensitive area for Malayasia. I quite understand how the political situation takes a backpedal and backfires in on itself, leading to racial riots, having lived in a country that itself has racial riots almost every other day. I think despite the riots that happen, it is always the common man suffering. Bee and her husband Chong didn't believe in the riots, they admitted Mel into their home despite the dire situation and they even cared for her when they themselves were hurt. Frankie too, in the end, even though he was quite against his parents having Mel into their household. But, my point is, these people actually had nothing to do with the riots and yet they were affected so badly from it that they had to pay the consequences. Even poor Safiya, who was just a normal teenager who had gone to watch a movie with her friend, got caught in the midst of it and had to face the brunt. I will not express any more views beyond this because seriously, I do not want to be cancelled.
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