Devi Nair
š§ Listened in audio š¢ Narrated by Eunice Wong ā± Duration: 9 hours š·ļø Publisher name: Books on Tape & Berkley
I am a card-carrying Jesse Q. Sutanto fan. I follow her in Instagram for her WIP stories. I have a Pavlovian response to her book covers. So when this book hit the stores, I put it on hold at my library and grabbed it the moment it became available.
And for a good chunk of those nine hours, I was completely here for it. Mebel is an absolute delight. She's tiny, unapologetically extra, and armed with a Chinese mother energy that radiates off the page. Eunice Wong is my favorite narrator. She is fantastic in the way of capturing every layer of Mebel's personality, the pride, the stubbornness, the surprising tenderness, and she handles the accents with real skill. The first half of this later-in-life reinvention story had me grinning through my commute. A sixty-three-year-old woman hauling designer luggage into a village culinary school to win back a man who clearly doesn't deserve her. What's there to not love in that?
But then.. the tone shifts, and not in a gentle way. This story goes darker than I anticipated, especially for a Jesse Q. Sutanto book. Usually, even with crime at the centre, her stories carry a certain levity. Here, when the narrative introduces a heavy and triggering element, it lands hard, and for me, it disrupted the reading experience. I wasn't prepared for it, and it made continuing the story feel more like pushing through than enjoying the ride.
That's not a criticism of Sutanto's craft at all. The writing is as sharp and funny and warm as ever. The character growth is real, the feminist undercurrent is satisfying, and Mebel's arc from trophy wife to woman who has finally met herself is genuinely moving. But for me, the unexpectedness of that particular turn pulled me out of the experience I came for, and I couldn't fully find my way back.
Would I recommend it? If you're a JQS fan who reads broadly across women's fiction and can handle darker content woven into an otherwise warm story, you'll likely find a lot to love here. Mebel is one of her most vivid characters yet, and the message that reinvention has no expiration date lands with real weight. The heart of this book is wonderful. I just needed the whole dish to sit differently. For me, the surprise factor impacted the experience more than Iād like.
š§ Listened in audio š¢ Narrated by Eunice Wong ā± Duration: 9 hours š·ļø Publisher name: Books on Tape & Berkley
I am a card-carrying Jesse Q. Sutanto fan. I follow her in Instagram for her WIP stories. I have a Pavlovian response to her book covers. So when this book hit the stores, I put it on hold at my library and grabbed it the moment it became available.
And for a good chunk of those nine hours, I was completely here for it. Mebel is an absolute delight. She's tiny, unapologetically extra, and armed with a Chinese mother energy that radiates off the page. Eunice Wong is my favorite narrator. She is fantastic in the way of capturing every layer of Mebel's personality, the pride, the stubbornness, the surprising tenderness, and she handles the accents with real skill. The first half of this later-in-life reinvention story had me grinning through my commute. A sixty-three-year-old woman hauling designer luggage into a village culinary school to win back a man who clearly doesn't deserve her. What's there to not love in that?
But then.. the tone shifts, and not in a gentle way. This story goes darker than I anticipated, especially for a Jesse Q. Sutanto book. Usually, even with crime at the centre, her stories carry a certain levity. Here, when the narrative introduces a heavy and triggering element, it lands hard, and for me, it disrupted the reading experience. I wasn't prepared for it, and it made continuing the story feel more like pushing through than enjoying the ride.
That's not a criticism of Sutanto's craft at all. The writing is as sharp and funny and warm as ever. The character growth is real, the feminist undercurrent is satisfying, and Mebel's arc from trophy wife to woman who has finally met herself is genuinely moving. But for me, the unexpectedness of that particular turn pulled me out of the experience I came for, and I couldn't fully find my way back.
Would I recommend it? If you're a JQS fan who reads broadly across women's fiction and can handle darker content woven into an otherwise warm story, you'll likely find a lot to love here. Mebel is one of her most vivid characters yet, and the message that reinvention has no expiration date lands with real weight. The heart of this book is wonderful. I just needed the whole dish to sit differently. For me, the surprise factor impacted the experience more than Iād like.