it was a solid 3 stars, but i didn't really care for any of the characters. and i wished the story focused more on ingrid's recovery and growth. and tit was a solid 3 stars, but i didn't really care for any of the characters. and i wished the story focused more on ingrid's recovery and growth. and the (view spoiler)[pedophilia was just not necessary?? (hide spoiler)] on second thought, lowering this to a two stars.
Merged review:
it was a solid 3 stars, but i didn't really care for any of the characters. and i wished the story focused more on ingrid's recovery and growth. and the (view spoiler)[pedophilia was just not necessary?? (hide spoiler)] on second thought, lowering this to a two stars....more
"to live is to exist within time. to remember is to negate time."
from cover to cover, bliss montage starts off with a bang and never stops. you are pr"to live is to exist within time. to remember is to negate time."
from cover to cover, bliss montage starts off with a bang and never stops. you are presented with a collection of eight stories, each a world within itself. as i ventured deeper into it, i found myself falling down rabbit holes trying to work out each story's deep complexities but came to the conclusion that some things are better off left alone—to let them sink in and soften.
the stories cover a wide range of topics, from abuse to childhood friendship to asian-americanism, with a precise hand. each theme is carefully and intricately built into the stories until the same thread is woven through each one. there is something so deeply personal to me when the topic of being asian-american is discussed in a book. if we are too american to be asian but too asian to be american, what does that make us? is our homeland the country we call home or our native land?
i was disconcerted by every single story in this book because god the way each one seamlessly fuses reality and fantasy is absolutely unreal. they root out the tenuous similarities between two worlds and exist on the thin line between universes, between intention and accident, between the many identities we are capable of shifting into.
each narrative was written in a detached, almost claustrophobic, tone: a state of perpetual and cold disregard. but ling ma manages to make some emotion bleed through. my only problem was that this tended to cause the characters to blend together in my head because of their lack of expression and monotone voice. because of this, i think it's best to read this in slices at a time rather than all in one sitting to allow its themes to fully unfurl and maximize their impact.
my favorite stories were G, office hours, and peking duck ...more
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