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A review by secre
Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Wandering Souls is one of those novels that will stay with me for a long time after I turned that last page. It's a haunting and reflective piece of work about being displaced, of being a stranger in a new country with no family or friends to rely on. And yet it's also a heart-warming narrative, of making your own place to belong, through set-backs, grief and loss.
Told in three narrative threads, it feels a bit disjointed to begin with but quickly finds a pace and a rhythm that is impossible to put down. It's a short read, and yet encompasses something so much bigger that it felt far larger. You have Anh and her two siblings, displaced from their home in Vietnam due to the war. As they find their way to the resettlement camp, they are confronted with the fact that their parents and younger siblings are not just behind them. Orphaned and alone, they have to find their own way in the world and Anh has to take up the mantle her parent's left. She and her brothers grow up, find their own way and their own mantles to carry. But it's never going to be an easy journey.
Interspersing this narrative of three children finding a place in what to them is a foreign land, you have the perspective of one of the deceased brothers, Dao, and an omnipresent narrator. Dao's voice is jarring in a way, it forces you to confront the very real fact that this very young child died and is forever separate and distant from half of the family he loved. The narrator's voice is equally jarring, often bringing you to the present and forcing you to confront the people behind the policies. But it works and it works well. The jarring moments become part of the story, how things aren't as simple and tidy as we might like but involve real people, real families and very real heart-ache.
As said above, this is a novel that will stick with me. And make me think in very real terms about the people left behind in the wake of catastrophe.
Told in three narrative threads, it feels a bit disjointed to begin with but quickly finds a pace and a rhythm that is impossible to put down. It's a short read, and yet encompasses something so much bigger that it felt far larger. You have Anh and her two siblings, displaced from their home in Vietnam due to the war. As they find their way to the resettlement camp, they are confronted with the fact that their parents and younger siblings are not just behind them. Orphaned and alone, they have to find their own way in the world and Anh has to take up the mantle her parent's left. She and her brothers grow up, find their own way and their own mantles to carry. But it's never going to be an easy journey.
Interspersing this narrative of three children finding a place in what to them is a foreign land, you have the perspective of one of the deceased brothers, Dao, and an omnipresent narrator. Dao's voice is jarring in a way, it forces you to confront the very real fact that this very young child died and is forever separate and distant from half of the family he loved. The narrator's voice is equally jarring, often bringing you to the present and forcing you to confront the people behind the policies. But it works and it works well. The jarring moments become part of the story, how things aren't as simple and tidy as we might like but involve real people, real families and very real heart-ache.
As said above, this is a novel that will stick with me. And make me think in very real terms about the people left behind in the wake of catastrophe.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Death of parent
Moderate: Racism and War