Many thanks to NetGalley, Book Club Girl and Harper Collins William Morrow for gifting me a digital ARC of this wonderful debut novel by Tracey Lien - 4.5 stars rounded up!
Ky Tran is Vietnamese-Australian and working as a journalist in Melbourne when she learns that her younger brother, Denny, was beaten and died while at a restaurant celebrating the end of school. Both Ky and Denny were hard workers, rule followers, under pressure from their immigrant parents to do well. So Ky doesn't understand what happened. When she returns home to Cabramatta for Denny's funeral, she learns that her parents refused an autopsy and the police interviews of those in the restaurant went nowhere. The Constable does give Ky a list of those in the restaurant who swore they didn't see anything, and Ky begins interviewing them to find out what happened to her brother.
This was such a wonderful book - tragic, beautifully written, a mystery inside a family saga. The book is told from Ky's point of view, in past and present, as well as from other characters. There is so much here to unravel besides what happened to Ky - family trauma passed on, societal expectations, growing in up a depressed region, guilt, shame - and it all feels very real. This is the type of book to really think about and would be a great book club pick. Can't wait to read more from this author.
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