Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

1 review

durrareadsstuff's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I'm a Malaysian, and the only thing I knew about 13th May was that it was a bloodbath fueled by racism and it was something I used to include in my essays about unity to make me sound smart. I don't recall anyone really talking about it and I was too much of a coward to find out for myself. Although it took a while, I'm glad I finally read this book. Besides covering the incident itself and the racism issue behind it, the author also did a fine job—in my opinion—writing about anxiety, OCD, and the stigma surrounding mental illness in Malaysia. Even a half-century later, the things mentioned in the book is still quite prominent. That, to me, was all too real and just devastating. 

All that aside, I'd say Melati's character development was done amazingly. However, I do think that the arc was a little bit rushed in the end. I think it's important to create a narrative that is able to incite feelings from the readers, and the author did just that. I felt sad when she mentioned her family or her OCD (god knows how many times I cried), worried when she thought of her mother, or when she thought someone saw her counting, and I was rooting for her all the way. The thing that awed me most though, was Frankie's arc. I like that the backstory was also included so we can sort of understand where all the hate is coming from.
Even though they didn't really become friends afterwards, but I think  he's come along way, and that's such an important thing to include in the story, how it's not too late for people to see sense and stop hating each other.
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