rlbasley's review
5.0
This is the second book that I have read by this author and will be my last ONLY because if she has more books out there my library doesn't have them. I love this author! Just as with her other book that I read, she captures your interest in the plot and there you are hopelessly lost in the lives of the characters. Great book!
balancinghistorybooks's review
2.0
I chose Catherine Lim's The Bondmaid for the Singapore stop on my Around the World in 80 Books challenge. I had hopes that it would resemble work by Lisa See or Amy Tan, but was unfortunately rather disappointed in this respect. I've said this about a few books of late, but The Bondmaid felt purposely complex with regard to its long sentences, and range of less common vocabulary; essentially, it was overwritten.
A lot of the sentences, despite their length, did not say a great deal; for instance: 'In his time, the author too had stood, trembling, in punitive assembly with his siblings, and his father before him, in a long tradition of that cruelty, not just of parents, but of deities and gods themselves in their temples and river shrines, which sees fit to visit upon all the sins of one.' This prose style really put me off, particularly when it was contrasted with short paragraphs, consisting of just one or two very simplistic sentences. The dialogue, too, felt unimaginative and matter-of-fact; the whole novel felt ultimately clumsy. The Bondmaid flits about far too much in time, and whilst I did find the cultural information interesting, I felt from the beginning that the story could have been far better handled than it was in actuality.
You can probably see now why I gave up on it.
A lot of the sentences, despite their length, did not say a great deal; for instance: 'In his time, the author too had stood, trembling, in punitive assembly with his siblings, and his father before him, in a long tradition of that cruelty, not just of parents, but of deities and gods themselves in their temples and river shrines, which sees fit to visit upon all the sins of one.' This prose style really put me off, particularly when it was contrasted with short paragraphs, consisting of just one or two very simplistic sentences. The dialogue, too, felt unimaginative and matter-of-fact; the whole novel felt ultimately clumsy. The Bondmaid flits about far too much in time, and whilst I did find the cultural information interesting, I felt from the beginning that the story could have been far better handled than it was in actuality.
You can probably see now why I gave up on it.
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