Volunteer Reader Review

For Today I am a Boy by Kim Fu

On April 11, 1979, Peter Huang is born. He is the third child and only boy born into a first generation Chinese-Canadian family.  The boy’s arrival, some ten years after the birth of two girls, fulfills his father’s obsessive dream of having male offspring.

Peter’s father makes every attempt to adopt western customs; refusing to speak his native tongue, even with his Chinese wife. The last time Peter’s mother hears his father speak Cantonese is when he holds his newborn son. It’s a name. A boy’s name: Juan Chaun. “Powerful king.” The birth certificate states Peter Huan but the name Juan Chaun exists, if not legally.

For Today I Am a Boy by Kim Fu

1. Huang bestows upon his son the expectations and privileges of male Chinese offspring, combined with his misconceived Western “values.”

Most of the novel is set in a neglected working class neighbourhood of Fort Michel, Ontario, a town of thirty thousand people.  The parents live on the periphery of their children’s lives.  Father believes in hard work. Mother lives a silent and obedient life, emotionally distant from her children.  Although Peter tries hard to fit in with a group of though boys at school, Peter is most happy and comfortable in the company of his sisters. There he finds the love, nurturing and understanding every child so much deserves.  One of his first assignments at school is to draw what he wants to be when he grows up. Peter draws himself as a mommy. He wishes he were a girl. The novel touchingly, and at times heart-wrenchingly, explores Peter’s struggle to find his true identity.

This debut novel by young Canadian author Kim Fu is a tour de force.  Her style flows easily. The story is insightful, touching, and at times funny.  She artfully captures the warmth and love between Peter and two of his three sisters and the absence of true parental love: dialogue, understanding, acceptance and support.

Reviewed by: Maria Dewaele

Volunteer Reader Review

The Lobster Kings by Alexi Zentner

This book is part mythology; part wonderful story-telling, with allusions to King Lear. It is based on the lobster industry and narrated by a strong female character. Zentner manages to evoke the realities of life on the ocean while moving the story forward in an interesting and enticing manner. Like the albatross in the Ancient Mariner, the mythology tied to the Kings family runs throughout the story and often appears to direct events. The story of King Lear hovers in the background and creates, in the reader, an anticipation of things to come.

The Lobster Kings by Alexi Zentner

I assume the author was combining two distinct literary genres, fantasy and reality, using each to clarify the other. I think this approach works very well. Each side of the narrative evolves as the novel progresses and provides a richer story as a result. My sense is that people who work on the ocean have a very high regard for its power and use beliefs such as those described in the book to help deal with events over which they have no control. Zentner not only provides an interesting technique but also enables the reader to understand the characters’ need for a belief in creatures that might otherwise seem outlandish in a different setting.

I feel that Zentner has written this book for anyone who enjoys a good story, beautiful writing, realistic description, an interest in parallel stories and strong characters. I believe his audience would be wide and varied but I do not think a committed reader of fantasy would necessarily appreciate it – though it might provide a nice transition into this genre.

Reviewed by: Trish Biggs

 

Volunteer Reader Review

Below is a review of The Kings Dragon by Scott Chantler and reviewed by Cameron.

The King’s Dragon by Scott Chantler

Volunteer Reader Review

In Between Dreams by Iman Verjee

Iman Verjee gets full points for bravery. She chooses to tackle an extraordinarily difficult – if not impossible – topic for her debut novel: a romantic and physical affair between a young teenage girl and her father. Once this topic is revealed in the book’s opening chapters (of course, it’s nowhere to be found on the jacket copy), I felt an immediate

In Between Dreams by Iman Verjee

sense of revulsion – but also intrigue, to see how the author would pull it off. So I found the book oddly compelling and read it very quickly.

It’s a brave book. Verjee’s topic is so taboo, and I imagine that in writing she aimed to begin a public discourse – so that those who had similar experiences, being abused as children by their parents, might be able to come forward without shame, to speak about what they silently endured. Which is a worthy and important goal.

Unfortunately, I found that the execution of the book was lacking. I was hoping for some serious psychological insight from the daughter’s perspective in particular, but instead felt curiously removed from the story. Verjee takes care to present both perspectives, creating a father character who we almost feel pity for, even as we (the audience) abhor his actions. But we’re held at arms length from James and from his daughter, Frances.

I most noticed the book’s lack of polish in its dialogue, which often falls flat. A sample conversation, from when France’s biological mother is leaving James:

She paused and he saw a glimmer of something at the edges of her eyes but it went away just as quickly. “I owe it to myself to go and try out for this part. ‘I’m still young – I have my whole life ahead of me.’ When that explanation didn’t suffice, she continued, ‘I just need some [sic] to sort things out, to get myself back to normal, then I’ll come back and we can figure this all out.’ But they both knew that once she walked out of the door, she was never coming back. ‘Besides, she’s your daughter too’.

‘So you’re just going to run off? Become an actress?’ He had to laugh. ‘You know that’s not going to happen. Especially with the way you look like right now.’

In short: the characters over explain, all speak in the same tone, and there’s little subtlety. Similarly, I found France’s development as the book progressed lacking. There is a fantastic moment where she chooses not to act on a crush she feels on a man at her boarding school who has a wife and family of his own, to not wreck it, in some sort of wonderfully subtly recognition of what appropriate boundaries are and that she might not actually know and how her actions could destroy others. I wanted more of that.

I’m afraid this book has a very small audience. It’s subject matter will disqualify it from many readers automatically, I think, and those that are willing to read about a father and daughter and their coercive physical relationship need it to be a truly remarkable book in order to make that journey worth it. Or I did, at least. And while I found it to be compelling, I didn’t find it to be remarkable. I was asking a lot of it, I know, but I also think that the subject matter demands a lot.

Reviewed by Kelsey Attard

Volunteer Reader Review

Below is a wonderful review of The Boundless by 11 year-old Emma Jarek-Simard:

 

And another great review by 11 year old Anthony Trotta: