- Well known children's author Rebecca Lim's new novel Tiger Daughter recently won the Children's Book Council of Australia 2022 Book of the Year award for older readers.
- High school friends Wen and Henry share a Chinese migrant background and they're studying hard for an entrance exam to gain admittance to a prestigious selective school.
- Wen’s father, a former doctor, failed four times to be admitted as a specialist in Australia. He is now working at a Chinese restaurant, a profound humiliation he simply cannot deal with. He is an angry, abusive, authoritarian father, and Wen hates him. She seethes with loathing. He utterly refuses to allow her to mix socially with her friends. Her mother, likewise, is treated with contempt, so has become servile and afraid of him.
- The story is a simple one, defined by anger and abuse. As readers we are engulfed in their miserable lives, and it's hard to take, only minimally redeemed by Lim's central focus on food and cooking, and the bonding it creates.
- Wen rages inside, but like her mother, never confronts her father. As readers we yearn for that.
- The resolution that this tale absolutely needed is absent. There is one, but it's tepid and disappointing.
No comments:
Post a Comment