Reviews with content warning for Cancer - The Paper Menagerie

Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu

6 reviews

ofclumsywords's review against another edition

emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This short story is included in a list of books for a class I’m taking. It is a fantasy short story that explores a Chinese-American boy and his relationship with his mother. When he is very young, the boy doesn’t think much of his upbringing and his mother who can only speak Chinese and cook Chinese meals. It isn’t until a friend comes over that he realizes that his household is much different from traditional American households and begins to reject his mother and his Chinese heritage. The story continues to become sadder as the boy continues to reject his mother and is never able to rekindle their relationship before she dies. It isn’t until he finds a handwritten note she wrote to him that is folded into one of the origami animals she used to bring to life for him that the boy finally understands who his mother is and what her life is like before she was brought to America to marry his father.

Although this is a sad story, the idea that a mother has the ability to literally bring her origami creations to life for her son to have toys is really cool. The author made each animal have a personality and acted like the animal for which it was made into. He even made it realistic by including a paper shark who fell apart when put into water so the mother remade one out of tinfoil so it could actually swim. The imagination that was put into an otherwise very real life scenario made this story less sad, but still heartbreaking to see a boy who just wanted to fit in with the other American kids allow himself to push his mother away instead.

Content Warnings