CBR13 #2: Minor Feelings By Cathy Park Hong

This will be a tough one to review. Cathy Park Hong's Minor Feelings wasn't just good – and it was unbelievably good. It was both recognizable – like a familiar friend who I just nodded along to as they spoke – and a revelation. She skillfully put into words a shade that has maybe always been super-imposed over my world view, feelings I never knew was nagging at me before. Her seven essays also covered so much ground that any review I write – and anything I've read by other outlets – will fall short what it felt like to just experience her writing.

I am what I'd call a biased reviewer. An unreliable narrator. My Asian-American-ness makes me someone already aligned with "identity politics", so how could I be counted on to give a full picture? 

It was hard for me to shake this feeling in the beginning as I started her first essay, "United". I kept thinking to myself, Do I identify with this because I'm Asian, or because it's so well-written? Both is the answer, but that nagging feeling could also be a way I was diminishing the value of my own perspective – something that Hong says Asians are well-acquainted with doing in the face of some classic American gas-lighting. 

And "United" is a doozy to start with. It covers a lot of ground, but it begins with a very frank assessment about her state of mind – her depression and how a Korean American therapist rejected taking her on as a patient. The therapist said they were not right for each other, and Hong flipped out. She essentially kept harassing her by phone, and attempted to leave her hateful reviews online.

There was a short prelude about a young Vietnamese teenager doing her nails, who kept clipping harder and harder on her toes despite her protests. She thought, "You should respect me like you're forced to respect those Iowan blond moms who come in here." By the end of the session, Hong was convinced that they were like "two negative ions repelling each other. He treated me badly because he hated himself. I treated him badly because I hated myself."

But what evidence do I have that he hated himself? Why did I think his shame skunked the salon? I am an unreliable narrator, hypervigilant to the point of being paranoid, imposing all my own insecurities on him... I was so privileged I was acquiring the most useless graduate degree imaginable. What did I know about being a Vietnamese teenage boy who spent all his free hours working at a nail salon? I knew nothing. 

I marvel at Hong’s honesty, her fearlessness at being seen as a terrible person. I don’t know how long it took to come to this point of self-awareness, where you’re willing to lay yourself out, filleted with all your ugly bits out, just so that you may be understood. 

Maybe part of that fearlessness comes from also no longer giving a fuck about how you’re perceived. Whether if readers think she was awful to that therapist or that Vietnamese teenager, the message it sent to me was this: Enough is enough. We are more than all the labels and things that saddle Asian Americans – a too-broad term but a rallying cry for unity nonetheless. And sometimes, what we are is just not pretty.

There's a lot of amazing literature about being Black in America, Hong said. But there really isn't that much self-examination by Asian Americans. Her seven essays, in short, attempts to tackle and parse out her feelings on being the model minority – or the minority that gets forgotten, the minority that "has it so good," the minority that's basically white-adjacent so they should be grateful.

She's also reluctant to use the plural "we". She is aware that the experiences of Asians in America are so vast and varied that it would be difficult for everyone's lived reality to be the same.

But the term “minor feelings” – which she explains in the incredible second essay “Stand Up” (which is also largely about Richard Pryor) – is very likely to feel familiar to any ethnic minority. Minor feelings come on when “American optimism is enforced upon you, which contradicts your own racialized reality, thereby creating a static of cognitive dissonance.”

You are told, “Things are so much better” while you think, Things are the same. You are told, “Asian Americans are so successful,” while you feel like a failure. This optimism sets up false expectations that increase these feelings of dysphoria…. Minor feelings are also the emotions we are accused of having when we decided to be difficult – in other words, when we decide to be honest.

There’s so many infuriating encounters she has with white people, but I think the more poignant ones are when the good encounters go awry. Like when a white woman came up to her after a reading and said “I wish you’d read your poems… We need poems to heal.” Hong told her gently, "I'm not ready to heal."

I felt a tight knot in my chest when I read that. I think a lot about race issues – such an odd, throwaway term to use when I feel so much of my life, my place in the world and in journalism has been so shaped by this. My anger and disappointment is almost like a flame that grows with any small indignity I see around me, and ebbs as I get weary.

But it also warms me.

Forgive me for speaking abstractly, but I don’t know what "peace of mind" means when it comes to this. Reading Minor Feelings, I got the sense that this "peace” or “being healed” just does not exist. Maybe one "solution" is not to care so much, not to be “hypervigilant to the point of paranoid” – but then I don't know any other way to be, just as Hong has been shaped so much by her personal, family, and cultural history to be the type of writer that she is.

I have now written over a thousand words on this – most of them are hers. But there are two more things I would like to highlight. 

The first is one of my favorite essays of hers, “Education”, which was about her time in Oberlin. Her closest friends were Helen and Erin, both art geniuses who reveled in being better than all of their white classmates. The teachers loved them; their peers were terrified of them – it was a period of naked ambition and boundless creativity that was later stifled with the challenges of a Real World once they’ve left college. It’s also a really cutting examination on tumultuous female friendships, and about the necessary endings we sometimes need.

Her temperament was distinctly familial to me. She could be me, if I could unzip my skin and release all my fury. 

An amazing line – and they're everywhere throughout Minor Feelings, showcasing Hong's training as a poet. I look forward to seeing “Education” as a big-screen movie one day.

The second is her final essay "The Indebted", which serves as a reminder for why she's here to do what she's doing in case you got lost in some of the more academic writing. It deals with the idea of how “they’re everywhere now” – Asians sneaking into communities rich and poor, in political circles and in CEO boardrooms. Decades ago, Asian Americans soldiers were among those in Vietnam, confusing the Vietnamese who shared rice with them; and they were the ones held in internment camps after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Marrying history with the demand for “gratitude” often yelled by right-wing pundits – “If you don’t like it here, then go back to where you came from” – she highlights the absurdity that Americans fails to understand: the connection between “here” to “there.”

Or as activists used to say “I am here because you were there”… I am here because you vivisected my ancestral country in two… My ancestral country is just one small example of the millions of lives and resources you have sucked from the Philippines, Cambodia, Honduras, Mexico, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, El Salvador and many, many other nations through your forever wars and transnational capitalism that have mostly enriched shareholders in the States. Don’t talk to me about gratitude. 

But make no mistake, Minor Feelings wasn’t just born so that Asian Americans can hear themselves reverberated and acknowledged – though that too exists, of course. Writing this must have taken an enormous amount of self-awareness and emotional labor by Hong. She left me with a sense of admonishment. How have we become so willing to be recruited to be the "junior partners in genocidal wars"? How have we allowed whiteness to conscript us to be anti-black and colorist? To prosper in a system that hates us and demands for our invisibility is not a win.

Conscription is every day and unconscious. It is the default way of life among those of us who live in relative comfort, unless we make an effort to choose otherwise.

So here I am, sitting in Bangkok, a Singaporean-American working as a foreign correspondent – a concept that is very much steeped in colonialistic ideals – bathed with both that rallying sense of indignation, and also feeling really called out. What have I done recently, in any meaningful sense, to further the cause of anti-racism? I used to say that my existence at the table is an act of revolution in and of itself. My presence can serve as a challenge, a rebuke to those who otherwise would say awful things outloud about Asians (and believe me, I’ve heard a lot, even among liberal circles).

I do still very much believe in that. But it also means that what Hong says is true – my temporary seat at that table is not really one of belonging. “If the Asian American consciousness must be emancipated, we must free ourselves of our conditional existence,” she says.

I don’t know what this will look like for me, but I’m grateful to have a writer as amazing and exact as Hong to grab me by the shoulders. I needed a good shaking, a rattling to my senses.

CBR9 #9: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I started reading this essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie many months ago, when I felt inspired to download it. It is very simply written as it was originally a TED talk delivered by the author. She gave very clear examples, with some humor and snark, on why it is absolutely silly to deny women equal rights to exist in the world they inhabit.

Halfway through, I stopped, and didn’t pick it up until last week. While much of the “rah rah feminism” sentiment still resonated, I couldn’t help but feel like her essay was structured in a very black-and-white manner. What I mean is that it was written to preach to the choir, and anyone reading it would likely already consider themselves a feminist. What’s more, the feminism that she explores is so basic, somewhat akin to how a student might approach addition and subtraction before being able to move on to physics.

Blame my niggling unease on the post-Weinstein consciousness that we are now seeped in. Now that the media is talking about the nuanced ways in which being a female can be considered dangerous in the workplace – whether if its due to sexual or gendered discrimination – simply stating “I am a feminist” doesn’t feel quite enough. In fact, in some cases, it might even feel fake and performative, like how certain men in Hollywood are saying that they had no idea about Weinstein (or Brett Ratner, or Charlie Rose, or [insert-prominent-male-figure-here) even though it should be clear by the coverage that the level of sexual harassment and abuse happening was an open industry secret.

Reading this now, what particularly strikes me is how little room for nuance Adichie has for how one should express their strength or feminism – an odd revelation considering that Americanah was one of the most nuanced depictions of race and societal’s perception of it that I’ve read.

For example, I find a lot of her notions of masculinity and femininity to be troubling. She said that when she gave a lecture once, she wish she had dressed more feminine instead of opting for a more masculine suit, because she felt that by wearing the suit, it was a way for her to try and be taken more seriously instead of being true to herself. I found that anecdote to be revealing of what she thinks of women who dress in “masculine” ways, or who engage in “masculine” acts. Does she mean that a women dressed in a feminine manner should be taken more seriously as she is being true to her feminine self – whatever that word means nowadays – and that we as women should adhere to a feminine way of dressing?

If I may be stuck on the fashion choices bit for a while, I also just find it troubling to ascribe fashion under definitions of masculine and feminine, especially in a world where Rihanna exists (She can wear a “masculine” or “feminine” garbage bag, and it would just be amazing because she’s Riri.) And tack on the troubling things she has said in the past (after this essay was published) about trans people and their experiences as women, I now also get the sense that she thinks the “feminine” experience is something that has qualities that *she * deems feminine.

In short, I find her description of strength and asserting your “feminine” self to be told in as binary a way as… say perhaps how chauvinists might see women’s role in society. Her point of view of the female experience – at least as I read it in this essay – appears to be as stringent and culture-based as the very society she accuses of engaging in gender discrimination.

It also really bothered me at the end when she said that her brother was the best feminist. It rubs me the wrong way, because it reminds me of how men nowadays would have performative feminist declarations (Obvious: “Women should have the right to choose what to do with their bodies.”), yet still engage in subtle acts that show their gender bias (Not so obvious: “She is always bitching about how the boss doesn’t like her because she’s a woman; she’s just being overly sensitive.”).

All of us have been raised in a patriarchy, so of course our point of view might be skewed, even women. But to say that the best feminist she knows is her brother feels odd – like she’s discounting any possible feminist role models she might have. She’s so eager to prove that her brother is one of the good ones, that men could – gasp! – be feminists that she somehow has forgotten to mention the female figures in her life and her education that might have shaped her feminist point of views. Some guy who’s supportive of his sister is the best feminist, whereas all the other women in her life don’t get nary a mention. It’s like propping him up for doing the bare minimum, being a not shitty brother. If that’s feminism, then it sounds an awful lot still like subscribing to the patriarchy. 

CBR9 #2: Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr.

Yesterday afternoon, I read Frank Bruni's opinion piece, titled "The Wrong Way to Take On Trump." Bruni – former political reporter turned restaurant critic turned opinion columnist for the New York Times – decided to school the American public on how we should "go high" when talking, protesting,  and generally reacting to Trump. Except he didn't really give specifics on what to do, nor did he interview any activists on their advice. Bruni spent the majority of this column telling us how we failed in our liberal-ness (listing obvious examples such as the tweet sent out about Barron Trump and Madonna's provocative stage antics) and his last two paragraphs basically can be summed up to this: "to rant less and organise more. To resist taunts and stick with facts. to answer invective with intelligence."

Thanks, man. I didn't know that at all. How helpful.

And that piece just reminded me of all the column inches devoted to how the Black Lives Matters protesters were doing it wrong, how they should have done it this other way instead; how they need to be peaceful. And it just made me even madder.

Which is what compelled me to revisit Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail. I haven't read it since... maybe high school? I'm not sure, truly. But I wanted my anger to be justified, to be sated in some way, to stop feeling like I'm guilty when my white, male friends tell me that I am "attacking" them when all I am simply doing is talking and stating facts about race, sexism, and civil rights.

It will be no shocker to anybody when I say that so much of what King wrote in 1963 is still relevant today. From the description of having to hear the word "wait" over and over again for your civil liberties, to the line on police brutality ("hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalise, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity") to the descriptions of economic desolation for minorities ("air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society") – yes, it is still so relevant today.

What I did miss as a teenager though was how much of a burn master King was. He really got some choice jabs in! From his use of sarcasm ("I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticism are sincerely set forth") to his blunt statement of emotion ("I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will.") to his subtle digs to the ministers who wrote the statement criticising King's demonstrations ("History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged grips seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.") King was totally all about setting them on fire.

But the real reason I wanted to reread it was for his admonition of the white moderate. Here is the beginning:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." 

Oh, he goes on, all right. King is merciless in his descriptions of the white moderate – and he is even nuanced enough to include middle-class blacks who have profited in that society and now has economic security (like The Invisible Man in the beginning of the book) – and it's astounding to me how direct parallels can be drawn in regards to the Black Lives Matters movement, and to the way certain (white, privileged) liberals have taken to reprimanding those with more vocal anxieties post-inauguration.

Seriously, there's even a #notallmen #notallwhitepeople section in the letter! King criticises the Southern church leaders (though he commended a single revered for welcoming black people to the worship service and Catholic leaders for integrating Springhill College) for preaching to follow the laws of integration, not because it is morally right, but because it is now a law. "I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour," he said. This was basically his #yesallchurches moment.

Another interesting thing that stood out to me was his purposeful use of indecisive language during key moments of the letter. "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom..." or "I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I should have realised that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed."

These "guess" "hope" and "maybe"s, read in an earnest way, take on a disappointed tone. It makes the reader feel that King truly had hope for the church leaders to do better, and he is greatly saddened by their lack of action. But read in a modern tone – which is how it started to sound in my head once I realised what an OG he was – it takes on an ironic tone, and then the piece shifts to anger. I don't know why I never saw it before, but now that I'm reading it in this current political climate, I can't help but feel like the moderates never showed up to begin with.

One final thing to mention: A friend of mine who reminded me of the letter when I was speaking with him also said that I am angry at these moderates because "that's really just aiming at someone you can hit." In a way, it's probably true.

CBR6 #3: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Democracy by Bertil Lintner

If you need a book that can explain to you the context of Burma's burgeoning transition to a democracy (or at least a nominal democracy), this book by Bertil Lintner is a good one. Not only is it a relatively short book that looks at the modern history of Burma, now known as Myanmar, Lintner's profession as a journalist makes this read very easy to digest.

As the title of the book suggest, a lot of it concerns Aung San Suu Kyi, and how the people in Burma see her. For many years, she was seen to the outside world as a sort of democracy icon, a Gandhi-esque figure who was held under house arrest by the Burmese military junta for her role as the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party. But since Burma started gradually opening up in 2011 or 2012 under the nominally civilian government of President Thein Sein, Suu Kyi was released from house arrest and permitted to participate in political activities. Since her release, Suu Kyi, disappointingly to human rights activists everywhere, have proven herself to be more of a politician -- most notably, she has refused to speak up on the plight of the Rohingyas, a minority Muslim people who live in northern Burma and have been the target for anti-Muslim raids and riots since 2012. As Burma is a predominantly Buddhist country, and the virulent hatred against the Rohingyas are, in some ways, very real and fully realized in Burmese society, Suu Kyi knows that speaking out for them would be a disastrous choice, politically.

Suu Kyi's move to be more of a pragmatist than an idealist is not news to anyone who follows Burma, and Lintner's writing chooses to treat her more as a human being, one with many questionable qualities as both a politician and a person. However, he also does not ignore the fact that the majority of people in Burma sees Suu Kyi as akin to a god. You've probably heard that the masses refer to her as "mother" and that she is revered for her spirituality. Lintner questions her ideology by looking at her speeches and her writings, and concludes that her rhetoric is often clouded in the spiritual and is difficult to really judge in reality.

While exploring her role in Burma's transition, Lintner also goes into the country's bloody history -- a narrative that we never hear about in Western media anymore since Burma became the most popular kid in the block. As someone who's lived and reported in Cambodia, I am used to seeing how cruel the government and the security forces can be. But reading about the infamous massacre floored me -- I suppose that's the benefits of having a dictatorship: You get to absolutely not give a shit about how the international community perceives you if you decide to violently and openly crack down on pro-democracy demonstrators.

On August 8, 1988, a group of students organized a demonstration in the capital Rangoon to rally for democracy. According to observers, it was fairly organized and was peaceful, and the mood was described as festive. By the early evening, thousands of people had gathered in the iconic Shwedagon Pagoda. A government spokesman ordered for the people to return home, but the crowd only grew; protest leaders exhorted to the demonstrators to remain peaceful. "Be disciplined! No provocations!"

But by around 11 pm, troops containing troops rolled out and opened fire on the protesters. "They fired on automatic right into the thickest part of the crowd," said a medical student present during the '88 protest. The demonstrators reacted, sometimes fighting back with clubs or molotov cocktails. This lasted until August 13, by which a medical volunteer estimated that at least 1,000 people in Rangoon were killed during this time. This number doesn't include other areas of Burma where similar pro-democracy demonstrations were being crushed brutally by the military. A US Embassy report said that deaths probably numbered over 2,000, "but actual numbers can never be known. In many cases as soon as they finished firing, troops carted off victims for surreptitious disposal to mask the extent of the carnage."

Reading this despaired me. It made me wonder where the limit is for us -- the nebulous we, the international community who are either condemning or condoning each country's actions, but never actually concretely affecting any change. I compare everything to Cambodia, of course, and I wondered if it takes the government killing 1,000+ people before the international community will just call a spade a spade, to acknowledge that this experiment called "Democracy in Cambodia" has failed. Is that what is needed? For a government to send its troops out and open fire on citizens protesting (that has happened in Cambodia this year) and kill thousands (the Cambodian security forces killed at least five. The full number remains unclear because there are still people unaccounted for/missing) before our governments do something?

Obviously, Burma and Cambodia are extremely different. I marvel at the fact that the military junta has managed to more or less keep Burma as a country (again, another benefit of being a dictatorship) despite the existence of numerous ethnic groups in the various states, some of which are still considered conflict areas because the ethnic armed groups and the Burmese Army are still clashing. I marvel at Burma's diversity and its people's seemingly deep yearn for democracy. I marvel at how blind the people are when it comes to their hatred of the Rohingyas -- not lest because some of that seems to be manipulated for the government's benefit.

So is Aung San Suu Kyi it? The gleaming hope for the Burmese who want democracy -- is she going to deliver on that expectation? Lintner ends it on an uncertain note. Written in 2011, Suu Kyi and her party has yet to have any clear objectives or platform or agenda. Now, three years later, very little has changed in that regard -- so far, they have been campaigning on the platform of constitutional reform of the junta-draft 2008 constitution, but as far as any concrete party policies though, very much remains unclear.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is a Burma newbie and wishes to understand more about the country. The Burma story really does have everything, if you are looking for an interesting narrative: There is the evil villain (the military government), the reformed villain who you are not sure whether if can be trusted (the current nominally civilian government), the shiny knight in armour (Aung San Suu Kyi) who could also turn out to be a bit of an anti-hero, the unfortunate but deserving masses (the people in Burma who want democracy ), who feel it's ok to oppress another group considered "other" to them (and the character of these Burmese masses could also double up as the arbiters of a possible genocide.)

I might be oversimplifying it, and Lintner's book goes a long way at pointing out the nuances in this recent chapter of Burmese history, which could be rewritten depending on next year's national elections. 

CBRIII #5: Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America by Kate Zernike

Late last year, I had the chance to attend a talk by Kate Zernike in which she discussed her book, Boiling Mad, with Frank Rich, the New York Times columnist, and Sam Tenenhaus, the NYT Book Review editor who is also a historian. It was extremely illuminating because Zernike had been following the Tea Party beat for the Times since it started soon after Obama's election, and she was able to give a very measured and analytical view of the Tea Partiers. This is very different from how one-note the media has been covering them, whether if it's their portrayal as uber-patriots or as a political punchline.

Also interesting to me was how she was reluctant to say that the rise of the Tea Party can be attributed to racism. When questioned by a black man in the audience about how Obama's skin color could have something to do with the rise of a predominantly white party who say things like, "Take back our America," Zernike stuck to her guns and said that though racism is probably an unacknowledged motivator, the catalyst was really the depression and economic crisis.



In Boiling Mad, she remains steadfast in her reporting that the number one reason for the existence of the Tea Party is because of the failing economy, but that does not mean she ignores the elephant in the room. Probably the first thing she tells us is that the Tea Party, as a whole, is not a united party. They may have bonded together under that label because of the economy or their dissatisfaction with the president, but their desires differ so much from county to state.

There are contradictions within the movement, and the Tea Partiers themselves are aware of it. A 62-year-old Tea Party supporter may be at a town hall protesting the growth of government during the bank bailouts, saying that the government has expanded too much and are infringing on an American's rights – and yet be reaping the benefits of Social Security, while acknowledging that she might one day be on Medicare because of heart trouble in her health history. The younger Tea Partiers tend to be strict constitutionalists, believing that the government should only step in where the Constitution allows it – yet anyone who reads the constitution the way a creationist reads the Bible will have reconcile themselves with slavery and oppression of women. The younger supporters' main beef is on the spending of taxpayers' money on programs and bailouts for large corporations that they believe should fend for themselves.

More than anything, Boiling Mad served as an insight into individual Americans who feel like their government had failed them. My reactions while reading this ranged from having an almost anthropological interest (at least in how it would affect the US political landscape) to wanting to throw the book across the room. Though my political sympathies tend to lean to the left, I am open-minded conservative points of views. However, some of the claims made by Tea Party supporters were just flat-out wrong. Every time Zernike chronicled someone saying that health care should come from charity and not from the government because Americans are the best people in the world, I wanted to pull my hair out. (Also another Tea Party-ism: "America has the best health care in the world." Have they never gotten sick?) And perhaps that might not be flat-out wrong and could be subjective, but I thoroughly disagreed with their philosophy of stamping their feet like petulant children when they cannot get what they want.

Zernike is extremely, painstakingly fair to the Tea Partiers – but even her efforts to remain objective cannot hide the fact that this movement is made up of dissatisfied people who just want what they want, regardless of what others need. When a Tea Partier says (and this is repeated oft throughout), "It's the We the People movement and my representative does not represent me!" one has to wonder how the representative got voted into office. According to Zernike, there are several zealots who quit their jobs or got laid off and decided devote their time entirely to organizing rallies and protests and "spreading the message"; but one has to wonder how they can be protesting on the failing economy when they are doing nothing to keep it going. They call themselves hardworking Americans yet they seem only to be working hardest at the yelling and screaming.

This book was at times infuriating, at times illuminating, and always engaging. Zernike is dealing with a very difficult topic and she did a great job straddling the line between objectivity and criticism. I was hoping my review of the book would portray the Tea Partiers in as fair a light, especially after reading the book. But since knowing more about them, I've actually come away disliking the movement more than I did before.

As a palate cleanser to the image above, here is the poster I made when I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity. Thanks to a Pajiban who came up with it!

Cannonball Read #27: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

I chose to pick up Never Let Me Go because Pajiba recently featured the trailer of the movie that is based on the Kazuo Ishiguro book, and all the comments were about how the book was completely heart-breaking at the end. Well, that intrigued me, and I guess I was in the mood to get my heart broken in a literary way.

Never Let Me Go is narrated by Kathy H., a young woman who begins by looking back at her childhood in Hailsham, a boarding school in England. The first part of the book talks about her relationships with her schoolmates, particularly between her mercurial (I really actually thought she was just manipulative) best friend, Ruth, and Tommy. There are many indications early on that Kathy's world might not be the same world that we live in because she tells us, in oblique ways, how the students in Hailsham are unique and special, and how their lives are basically mapped out from them since the beginning.

The Hailsham's students' purpose in life is not exactly a big mystery, though I hesitate to reveal it here because it might take the fun out of figuring it out. What was most interesting, to me, was how Kathy's narration made everything seem so matter-of-fact – so nonchalant – that the reality they live in really do not seem all that unlikely.

My favorite parts of the book were concerning the little fights that Kathy and Ruth had. It reminded me so much of my time in an all-girl school - times that I thought I had successfully blocked out but all came back to me while reading. It was just really interesting to see these childish, petty feelings be put into words (and even in rational terms!) when I felt like back then, for me, it was just all emotional "Me Me Me" feelings.

The later parts of the book deal with the reunion between the three friends many years after they have moved on from Hailsham, and how the mysteries from their childhoods were answered. Kathy H. maintains her tone of nonchalance throughout the book, which was quite disorienting to me, but I did appreciate it. I believe the ending did not affect me as badly as I anticipated because of the following reasons:

1) Kathy did not seem to be too torn up about it (she just accepted it!), and I was identifying with her for most of the book.
2) I had really high expectations for this "heart-breaking" ending, and because I saw it coming, it did not devastate me as much I thought.

All in all, it was actually a really good book. Though the writing was done in the voice of a young girl (Kathy narrated in a very natural way) I kept on reading because I just wanted to know what happened to the characters in the end. I think I will go back to it in a couple months just to see if my perception of it has changed because it seems like the type of book in which what you get from it can be different each time you reread it.