A review by sangeethat
A MALAYSIAN RESTAURANT IN LONDON by Tunku Halim
2.0
A slim book with a large imagination, this novel about a young girl with special gifts is part horror, part thriller, part what-in-the-world-is-happening. Brush up on your South-east Asian (specifically Malay) myths and legends, cos you're gonna need them.
The love story in it is sweet and stretches across decades, and the accompanying characters are drawn out enough to be their own people. My biggest criticism with this novel is that it does not truly discuss who the villains are, what they want or precisely why they are doing what they do. We end up vaguely guessing, the characters end up vaguely confirming our suspicions, and we all end up vaguely at the end.
The publishers are an amazing, indie KL publishing house and it is more for them than the actual writer (who has a reputation for writing quite amazing things in other novels) that I ended up reading it. I'd recommend it for a taste of the Southeast interspersed with Europe, and some pretty good plot progression in the middle, but not necessarily for the writing.
The love story in it is sweet and stretches across decades, and the accompanying characters are drawn out enough to be their own people. My biggest criticism with this novel is that it does not truly discuss who the villains are, what they want or precisely why they are doing what they do. We end up vaguely guessing, the characters end up vaguely confirming our suspicions, and we all end up vaguely at the end.
The publishers are an amazing, indie KL publishing house and it is more for them than the actual writer (who has a reputation for writing quite amazing things in other novels) that I ended up reading it. I'd recommend it for a taste of the Southeast interspersed with Europe, and some pretty good plot progression in the middle, but not necessarily for the writing.