The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Refugees is a beautiful symphony of short stories, composed with a sweet yet bitter melody of the dreams and hardships of immigration. The stories revolve around the common theme of vietnamese refugees who have settled in the United States, but each offer their own unique twist and journey.

Songs of aspirations, desires and expectations, silenced by the harsh reality of discrimination and the chilling eerie feeling of not belonging and losing one's identity.

An identity lost somewhere along the busy winding streets crammed with new people, speaking new languages, housing new beliefs and opinions. A rich assortment of complex characters, dropped into a complex world bearing new realities and rules of living. Each story highlights the raging battlefield between the adopted homeland and the country of birth, scars and wounds telling the stories of the desperate struggle to “fit in” while still staying true to one's tradition and roots. Each page trembles with the terrible heartache of losing one's country to war, and instead being forced to fall in love with another.

This cleverly crafted collection of short stories, gives voice to the incredibly real and raw emotions and complications faced by refugees. A deeply moving and powerful love letter addressed to all the travelling hearts and souls of refugees around the world.

Reviewed by Vindhya Kathuria

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Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces by Michael Chabon

In his new book, Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces, (out just in time for Father’s Day) Michael Chabon delivers a heartfelt, funny and beautifully written tribute to fatherhood - and I am thrilled to report that you do not even need to be a Dad to enjoy it!

In seven short essays, Chabon successfully shines a bright and warm light on the myriad af emotions and experiences that define parenthood in general, and fatherhood in particular. A father of four himself, Chabon dedicates his essays to his children and shares experiences that have defined his relationship with them - and, in the final essay, with his own “Pops”.

In Little Man (my personal favorite) Chabon describes a trip he took with his then 13-year old, fashion obsessed son, Abraham, to Paris Fashion Week (while writing an article for GQ) and how he slowly over the course of just a few days realises how the world we create for our children, as important as it is, can and will only ever be just a corner of their lives.

“You are born into a family and those are your people, and they know you and they love you, and if you are lucky, they even on occasion manage to understand you. And that ought to be enough. But it is never enough.”

In Against Dickitude (another favorite, if only for the title:) Chabon describes with great insight and self deprecating wit the challenges of raising boys and girls in a male dominated world and the valuable lessons he has learned from his mother, his ex-wife, his current wife and his daughter.

 “In order to be a man - a real man - I must try to imagine what it was like to be a woman[…] I have been working most of my life to imagine myself into the minds and circumstances of the women in my life. But it was not until I had daughters that I fully became aware of  - and duly horrified by - the damage that I myself, in my latent dickitude, was capable of inflicting.”

There are so many recognizable moments in Pops. One that will surely make most parents of teenagers smile is in “Be Cool or be Cast out” where Chabon while trying to support his eldest son’s attempts to fit in, remembers his own awkward teenage years and quickly realizes that “….there are few sentences more utterly devoid of meaning that those in which your parents assert your coolness.“

Pops is a “one sitting” read that will make you smile, even laugh, at times gasp in recognition and realization and it will most certainly make you reflect on the vast minefield of parenting and the immense power we have in shaping the person our child will become.

The world is full of great dads and Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces is the perfect book for the often (if not always) perfect Dad in your life. 

Happy Reading!

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 I Swapped My Brother On The Internet by Jo Simmons

'I Swapped My Brother On The Internet' is a Hilarious and gripping book based on brotherly love, and the fact that you should always hang on to your family, they are the people who will always love you and support you, even if you don't notice it. Jonny is an ordinary boy in his ordinary town, part of an ordinary family, however he has an annoying brother, Ted who constantly teases Jonny and makes him feel out of ease all the time. Spectacularly enough, a peculiar ad popped up on his screen saying sibling swap, swap siblings today with siblings wap.  Soon after that occured  Jonny came to his final straw and he set fouriously to the siblings wap website to swap his brother, he filed the form and sent it right away . The sibling swap team said the swap would be coming at 5 pm. He went down to his brothers room and called out “TED!” and again “TED” but no answer came. Ted was gone. After the first swap arrived it was followed by a dozen of catastrophic swaps, for example a mere boy the ghost of Henry the Eight, and a boy raised by meerkats. Jonny sooner or later realized that he may be prefered Ted out of all these other ‘Brothers’. But how was Jonny ever to get Ted back?...

My favourite character in the book is one of the swaps who faked being a Xbox addicted kid called Pete to know more about the origins of the siblingswap website, but whose real name was pip and she was really a girl. I prefer  her due to her brave, sneaky and brilliant attributes which I greatly admire. My opinion and perspective on this novel is that it is extremely readable and greatly entertaining, although contemporaneously gives an important lesson to the reader. I recommend this book to readers and fans of 'The Parent Agency' by David Baddiel and all other family based hilarious novels.  

Reviewed by Lahiri Paolella (Aged 11)

Happy reading! 

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Lullaby by Leila Slimani

“The baby is dead.” It is this genius opening line of the book that first grips you (by the throat) and doesn’t let go until you turn the final page. 

Lullaby is the story of Myriam and Paul, a young couple with two small children and their nanny Louise. When Myriam decides to return to work, a choice accepted only reluctantly by Paul, the couple hire Louise, prim and proper, with her Peter Pan collar and her hair tied back in a clean knot, to look after their children. “My Nanny is a miracle-worker," Myriam proclaims to her friends, as they file in for Louise’s perfect meals in the small but, thanks to Louise, perfectly tidy apartment. Louise adores the children who adore her right back and Myriam and Paul can’t believe their luck and return to the lives they had dreamt of for themselves.

Things are, of course, never quite as they seem and as Louise slowly weaves herself into the fabric of the family, author Leila Slimani takes the reader back into the dark story and history of this woman who while she is in control of everything in Myriam and Paul’s life has lost control of everything in her own life. Her enhanced position in the household juxtaposed with the life she lead in the shadows of French society and the dark streets of Paris.

Lullaby is a beautifully written, atmospheric thriller, but it is also a strong and deftly crafted critique of society; of those who rise up and those who spend their lives in an unstoppable freefall towards the bottom.

The ending is on the first page, but the journey back to that beginning is at turns exciting, sad, thought provoking and frightening.

Lullaby is a book that requires a few breaks, but can so easily be read in just one sitting, breathlessly, anxiously on the edge of your seat.

Do it. You won’t regret it!

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