(This occurs at, like, the halfway point.)Ĭasual racism privilege not only the characters but the author exist in total unawareness of unrelenting and sickening entitlement self-serious prose that is only sometimes as good as it thinks it is and more stuff of nightmares.īut first, let’s say that it’s actually disturbing that this proudly presents itself as A RECOMMENDED BOOK FROM: Later, after milking Julian for all he is worth and while living solo in his intensely bougie apartment and solely off of his kindness, Ava starts sleeping with Edith, who might be the first Asian adult with dialogue in the whole book. She starts working as an English teacher for kindergarteners, and she’s comically reprehensible at it.Īva then meets Julian, a relatively nice banker who is treated with all the warmth and friendliness warranted by the biological offspring of Satan. I don’t say what the ending is, and this book has no real plot, but there’s your warning.Īn Irish expat, Ava, who moves to Hong Kong for truly no reason, except perhaps for the challenge of surrounding herself with 100 percent white people in a not-majority-white country, or otherwise being a one-woman force of colonization. This has spoilers in it, I guess, but honestly I don’t know what there is to spoil. (Goodreads admin, this is not a threat, just a possible scolding.) (Don’t take down my review, please.) (You have never done that to this point and to be honest it feels like I’m playing with fire at this juncture.) Well, I suppose I will begin with the Lofty Assumption that most of you reading this review have not read this book, because the only reason I even justified myself finishing it is because I very much wanted to be the top review of this and give it one star, and I only validated my own belief in my ability to do so by threatening all of you who TBRed it with grievous bodily me-yelling-at-you.

But unfortunately the constant onslaught of bigotry and toxicity, both intended and not, ruined it for me. I know that this book is attempting to discuss imperialism and colonization and race, but in my opinion, it bungles it.įurthermore, there are implicit biases in this book that go beyond that intentional discussion.įinally, I thought there was a lot of promise in this book. I know that authors are not the same as narrators, and some of my favorite books have had unlikable or problematic main characters that are separate from the person who wrote them. I hid this entire review due to spoilers (but mostly because I'm tired of everyone getting mad at me and misinterpreting what I'm trying to say). NOTE: I am coming in here a little over a year after writing this because I have changed a bit as a reader and reviewer, and want this, which is still getting eyes on it pretty constantly, to reflect that.

Naoise dolan exciting times