A review by meermollusk
Rainbirds by Clarissa Goenawan
3.0
I waffled for awhile on what to rate this one. At its best, this is a moving story about a brother trying to delve deeper into his recently deceased sister's life and rediscovering their relationship. All of the flashbacks between Ren and his sister I loved and Goenawan's raw, simple writing style added to the
incredible emotion of these scenes. The atmosphere of the novel was also extremely well done, I could picture every scene in my mind completely (and the food!), despite this story taking place in a fictional town.
However, this also tries to be a bit of a mystery novel and I feel like that's where it falters. At the beginning I was most interested in how Keiko (Ren's sister) died, but by about the middle I kind of stopped caring. Too many side characters were introduced simply for the purpose of supplying a tiny tidbit of information, and in my opinion the conclusion to this mystery just wasn't satisfying.
incredible emotion of these scenes. The atmosphere of the novel was also extremely well done, I could picture every scene in my mind completely (and the food!), despite this story taking place in a fictional town.
However, this also tries to be a bit of a mystery novel and I feel like that's where it falters. At the beginning I was most interested in how Keiko (Ren's sister) died, but by about the middle I kind of stopped caring. Too many side characters were introduced simply for the purpose of supplying a tiny tidbit of information, and in my opinion the conclusion to this mystery just wasn't satisfying.