The Floating Order

I was overjoyed when I found out I'd won a hard-copy book from LibraryThing's Member Giveaway. Erin, the author was gracious enough to send me a signed copy together with a personal message in a card too. ☺

The stories in the book however are far from cheery. But not in a bad way. In fact, the stories are well-written that I needed moments to digest at times at the horror that befell some of the characters in there.

The Floating Order is a collection of 19 short stories that revolves around children and the stuff they face; there's the mom who drowned her babies (which reminded me of the scene from Shutter Island; no wonder Leonardo's character went nuts!), a choir practice gone wrong, a dead girl inside a piano, a film camp that wasn't, and many more.

The stories start out almost harmless and you're pulled in by the magic weaved by Erin with her words and out of nowhere you realize "Oh, gosh!" I like Drift and how an earlier story, Park, is creatively mention in it as a  scary bedtime story about why kids should not talk to strangers. Digging made me thought of Hansel & Gretel and I would love to read on on why the mother did what she did and what happen to the children after.

An interesting read but don't expect happy endings. Some of the stories might even haunt you long after you're done with them.

My Rating:

Snail's Pace

It's the long weekend afterall... ☺

Xuan

My first graphic novel and I finished it in 2 days - although it meant pushing back the books in queue to make way *guilty as charged

Forget Sorrow is really an impulse buy i.e. read an article about it in the papers in the morning and got it that same evening @ Borders.

Fortunately, it isn't something I regretted buying. 

Forget Sorrow is a true-life tale of the author's life (an American-Chinese) that mostly focus on her father's recollection of growing up in China through WWII and the Communist revolution. And yes, all in drawings, sketches, comical/heartfelt dialogues and all. Very creative I must say. 

It opened up my eyes to how bad life was back then in China where many of the people lived in poverty. And also how even your own family members could turn their backs at the first sign of a disappearing wealth. 

It was the bleakest Spring Festival in memory. In the previous year we were worried that there were no New Year Eve's dumplings. This year, we were fighting with the mice for the grain fallen beneath the floorboards.

A refreshing way of reading a memoir rather than the usual hundreds of word-filled pages to burrow through. The only thing I am not too keen is the few not-too-clear writings in the speech bubbles. I think I squinted a bit trying to read those. Overall though the story is good. Engaging and fascinating.

By the way, Xuan is the author's Chinese name which translates as "Forget Sorrow".

My Rating:

Freedom

Pompeii Revisit

Six months on....

...and I am still as fascinated as the day I stood there ☺