Preeta Samarasan weaves language, time and characters in such a way as to carry the reader into a different culture and history. She creates an even web, teaching and enchanting even as each event and person come to life, showing that what one sees at a given moment in time
…more is really a layered reality that can never be known without all the normally imperceptible small daily realities. Malaysia, its turbulent history and peoples, comes alive in minuscule happenings as they unfold in Samarasan’s impeccable arrangement of time and people. Her people live and breathe, carrying us into their tumultuous yet somnolent life in a spellbinding story that one hates to finish. (less)